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Home  »  The Poetical Works In Four Volumes  »  St. Martin’s Summer

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Poems of Nature

St. Martin’s Summer

  • This name in some parts of Europe is given to the season we call Indian Summer, in honor of the good St. Martin. The title of the poem was suggested by the fact that the day it refers to was the exact date of that set apart to the Saint, the 11th of November.


  • THOUGH flowers have perished at the touch

    Of Frost, the early comer,

    I hail the season loved so much,

    The good St. Martin’s summer.

    O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn,

    And thin moon curving o’er it!

    The old year’s darling, latest born,

    More loved than all before it!

    How flamed the sunrise through the pines!

    How stretched the birchen shadows,

    Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines

    The westward sloping meadows!

    The sweet day, opening as a flower

    Unfolds its petals tender,

    Renews for us at noontide’s hour

    The summer’s tempered splendor.

    The birds are hushed; alone the wind,

    That through the woodland searches,

    The red-oak’s lingering leaves can find,

    And yellow plumes of larches.

    But still the balsam-breathing pine

    Invites no thought of sorrow,

    No hint of loss from air like wine

    The earth’s content can borrow.

    The summer and the winter here

    Midway a truce are holding,

    A soft, consenting atmosphere

    Their tents of peace enfolding.

    The silent woods, the lonely hills,

    Rise solemn in their gladness;

    The quiet that the valley fills

    Is scarcely joy or sadness.

    How strange! The autumn yesterday

    In winter’s grasp seemed dying;

    On whirling winds from skies of gray

    The early snow was flying.

    And now, while over Nature’s mood

    There steals a soft relenting,

    I will not mar the present good,

    Forecasting or lamenting.

    My autumn time and Nature’s hold

    A dreamy tryst together,

    And, both grown old, about us fold

    The golden-tissued weather.

    I lean my heart against the day

    To feel its bland caressing;

    I will not let it pass away

    Before it leaves its blessing.

    God’s angels come not as of old

    The Syrian shepherds knew them;

    In reddening dawns, in sunset gold,

    And warm noon lights I view them.

    Nor need there is, in times like this

    When heaven to earth draws nearer,

    Of wing or song as witnesses

    To make their presence clearer.

    O stream of life, whose swifter flow

    Is of the end forewarning,

    Methinks thy sundown afterglow

    Seems less of night than morning!

    Old cares grow light; aside I lay

    The doubts and fears that troubled;

    The quiet of the happy day

    Within my soul is doubled.

    That clouds must veil this fair sunshine

    Not less a joy I find it;

    Nor less yon warm horizon line

    That winter lurks behind it.

    The mystery of the untried days

    I close my eyes from reading;

    His will be done whose darkest ways

    To light and life are leading!

    Less drear the winter night shall be,

    If memory cheer and hearten

    Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee,

    Sweet summer of St. Martin!

    1880.