Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

III. The Seasons

Life in the Autumn Woods

Philip Pendleton Cooke (1816–1850)

SUMMER has gone,

And fruitful Autumn has advanced so far

That there is warmth, not heat, in the broad sun,

And you may look, with naked eye, upon

The ardors of his car;

The stealthy frosts, whom his spent looks embolden,

Are making the green leaves golden.

What a brave splendor

Is in the October air! how rich, and clear,

And bracing, and all-joyous! We must render

Love to the Spring-time, with its sproutings tender,

As to a child quite dear;

But Autumn is a thing of perfect glory,

A manhood not yet hoary.

I love the woods,

In this good season of the liberal year;

I love to seek their leafy solitudes,

And give myself to melancholy moods,

With no intruder near,

And find strange lessons, as I sit and ponder,

In every natural wonder.

But not alone,

As Shakespeare’s melancholy courtier loved Ardennes,

Love I the browning forest; and I own

I would not oft have mused, as he, but flown

To hunt with Amiens—

And little thought, as up the bold deer bounded,

Of the sad creature wounded.

A brave and good,

But world-worn knight—soul-wearied with his part

In this vexed life—gave man for solitude,

And built a lodge, and lived in Wantley wood,

To hear the belling hart.

It was a gentle taste, but its sweet sadness

Yields to the hunter’s madness.

What passionate

And keen delight is in the proud swift chase!

Go out what time the lark at heaven’s red gate

Soars joyously singing—quite infuriate

With the high pride of his place;

What time the unrisen sun arrays the morning

In its first bright adorning.

Hark! the quick horn—

As sweet to hear as any clarion—

Piercing with silver call the ear of morn;

And mark the steeds, stout Curtal and Topthorne,

And Greysteil and the Don—

Each one of them his fiery mood displaying

With pawing and with neighing.

Urge your swift horse

After the crying hounds in this fresh hour;

Vanquish high hills, stem perilous streams perforce,

On the free plain give free wings to your course,

And you will know the power

Of the brave chase,—and how of griefs the sorest

A cure is in the forest.

Or stalk the deer;

The same red lip of dawn has kissed the hills,

The gladdest sounds are crowding on your ear,

There is a life in all the atmosphere:—

Your very nature fills

With the fresh hour, as up the hills aspiring

You climb with limbs untiring.

It is a fair

And goodly sight to see the antlered stag

With the long sweep of his swift walk repair

To join his brothers; or the plethoric bear

Lying in some high crag,

With pinky eyes half closed, but broad head shaking,

As gadflies keep him waking.

And these you see,

And, seeing them, you travel to their death

With a slow, stealthy step, from tree to tree,

Noting the wind, however faint it be.

The hunter draws a breath

In times like these, which, he will say, repays him

For all care that waylays him.

A strong joy fills

(A joy beyond the tongue’s expressive power)

My heart in Autumn weather—fills and thrills!

And I would rather stalk the breezy hills

Descending to my bower

Nightly, by the sweet spirit of Peace attended,

Than pine where life is splendid.