Song of the wave / George Cabot Lodge [electronic text]

FALL

NAY, be content—our door that opens wide On whitened fields this autumn dawn, all furred With silver imagery, the sudden bird That soothes the crystal air, the windless tide Of light across the world from roof to floor— Thy heart can ask no more. The fringed horizon of the pinesIs delicate with frore, And holds our world within its shadow shore, Our world where beauty fresh with dewy wines Sits naked at our door.Thine eyes in mine! The vineyard's dusky bloom, The garnered grain, are gifts of autumn's mirth; And now, while softly through the forest gloom The warm awakening of the good wet earth

Suspires through the dawn, we need not fearThe ceaseless pageantry of death and birth, The swallow's passing with the changing year. Our souls could say, "Perfection was and is; Death comes like slumber, "—if to-morrow's sun Should find us fallen with the summer's rose. This moment stolen from the centuries, This foretaste of the soul's oblivion We hold and cherish, and because of this Are life and death made perfect, and thy woes Turn lyric through the glory we have won. The morning flower that drew its petals close And slept the cold night through is now unfurled To catch the breathless moment; big and sane Our autumn day forsakes the gates of rose, And like a lion shakes its golden mane And leaps upon the world.