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| FAIR as the dawn of the fairest day, | |
| Sad as the evening’s tender gray, | |
| By the latest lustre of sunset kissed, | |
| That wavers and wanes through an amber mist,— | |
| There cometh a dream of the past to me, | 5 |
| On the desert sands, by the autumn sea. | |
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| All heaven is wrapped in a mystic veil, | |
| And the face of the ocean is dim and pale, | |
| And there rises a wind from the chill northwest, | |
| That seemeth the wail of a soul’s unrest, | 10 |
| As the twilight falls, and the vapors flee | |
| Far over the wastes of the autumn sea. | |
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| A single ship through the gloaming glides | |
| Upborne on the swell of the seaward tides; | |
| And above the gleam of her topmost spar | 15 |
| Are the virgin eyes of the vesper-star | |
| That shine with an angel’s ruth on me,— | |
| A hopeless waif, by the autumn sea. | |
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| The wings of the ghostly beach-birds gleam | |
| Through the shimmering surf, and the curlew’s scream | 20 |
| Falls faintly shrill from the darkening height; | |
| The first weird sigh on the lips of Night | |
| Breathes low through the sedge and the blasted tree, | |
| With a murmur of doom, by the autumn sea. | |
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| O sky-enshadowed and yearning main, | 25 |
| Your gloom but deepens this human pain; | |
| Those waves seem big with a nameless care, | |
| That sky is a type of the heart’s despair, | |
| As I linger and muse by the sombre lea, | |
| And the night-shades close on the autumn sea. | 30 |
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