William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)

AY, thou art welcome, heaven’s delicious breath,

When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief,

And the year smiles as it draws near its death.

Wind of the sunny South! O, still delay

In the gay woods and in the golden air,

Like to a good old age released from care,

Journeying, in long serenity, away.

In such a bright, late quiet, would that I

Might wear out life like thee, ’mid bowers and brooks,

And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,

And music of kind voices ever nigh;

And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,

Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.