Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By William CullenBryant98 My Autumn Walk
O
The amber sunshine lies;
I look on the beauty round me,
And tears come into my eyes.
Blows out of the far Southwest,
Where our gallant men are fighting,
And the gallant dead are at rest.
And the purple aster waves,
In a breeze from the land of battles,
A breath from the land of graves.
Before that wandering breath;
As fast, on the field of battle,
Our brethren fall in death.
The forest spoils are shed;
They are spotting the grassy hillocks
With purple and gold and red.
Of those who bravely fight
In their country’s holy quarrel,
And perish for the Right.
The light of whose homes is gone:
The bride that, early widowed,
Lives broken-hearted on;
In graves on a distant shore;
The maiden, whose promised husband
Comes back from the war no more?
Whose windows glimmer in sight,
With croft and garden and orchard,
That bask in the mellow light;
With news of victory come,
They will bring a bitter message
Of hopeless grief to some.
And shudder as I see
The mock-grape’s blood-red banner
Hung out on the cedar-tree;
And the night-sky red with flames,
On the Chattahoochee’s meadows,
And the wasted banks of the James.
When the groves are in their prime,
And far away in the future
Is the frosty autumn-time!
When the pride of the foe shall yield,
And the hosts of God and Freedom
March back from the well-won field;
With tears of joy and pride;
And the scarred and war-worn lover
Shall claim his promised bride!
But the living buds are there,
With folded flower and foliage,
To sprout in a kinder air.
R