| |
| SO all day long I followed through the fields | |
| The voice of Autumn, calling from afar; | |
| And now I thought: “Yon hazel thicket yields | |
| A glimpse of her,” and now: “These asters are | |
| Sure sign that she of late has passed this way; | 5 |
| Lo! here the traces of her yellow car.” | |
| |
| And once I looked and seemed to see her stand | |
| Beneath a golden maple’s black-drawn boughs; | |
| But when I reached the place, naught but a band | |
| Of crickets did perform their tuneful vows | 10 |
| To the soon fading grass, and through the leaves | |
| The quiet sunlight, falling, blessed my brows. | |
| |
| Till, as the long rays lengthened from the west, | |
| I came upon an altar of gray stone, | |
| O’er which a creeper flung with pious zest | 15 |
| Her flickering flames. About that altar lone, | |
| The crowding sumac burned with steady fire; | |
| Before it, stately, stood a priestess; one | |
| |
| Who turned to me her melancholy eyes. | |
| I saw her beauty, ripe with color’s breath, | 20 |
| Yet veiled, as when on wood and hill there lies | |
| A mist, a shadow, as of coming death. | |
| And while I gazed she faded; swift I clutched | |
| Her fringëd cloak, which rent, my grasp beneath. | |
| |
| And she was gone. As fluttered to the ground | 25 |
| Its many fragments, I with sudden fears, | |
| Stooped, vainly seeking them, when all around | |
| The blue fringed gentian smiled up through my tears, | |
| As one who knows his welcome will be warm, | |
| Although sad news to his beloved he bears. | 30 |
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