Book of verses / Edgar Lee Masters [electronic text]

ODE TO AUTUMN

SEASON of gusty days and cloudy nights, The wind which showers wine apples to the ground Blows at midday the long, pale, lunar lights O'er weedy fields with melancholy sound. Summer has gone, but she has left a show Of downy clouds against the autumn sky, Which the chill breezes chafe until they glow —

Ghosts of that luxuryWhich now is by.

The golden trees against a sky of JuneSeem like a life that is too soon grown gray;Through smothering clouds the large autumnal moonRolls argently her undiminished way.The wonder of night's bright processionalAbates not with the fading of the flowers,Still glorious on all the earth doth fall—But for those withered bowersThe pain is ours.

Here in my garden all the rich repose,The silence and the trance of summer eves

Has passed into a death presaging doze;The air is twinkling with the falling leaves And sad elf-sighs do fill each little dell. Yet when the wind booms from the vale below The moon is shaken like a cockleshell,Through the long, ragged boughThat moans its woe.

If spring and summer be thy mask, O year, Which falls in autumn, leaving hideous The thing we deemed was to our being dear, Then life may not be that it seems to us In youth—but sometime may reveal—

When the worn heart the shock can scarcely bearA countenance to make the spirit reel,On reefs of keen despair,To perish there.

Ah, many a time and oft on nights like this The whip-poor-will has sent abroad her song From depths of anguish and from heights of bliss. Now is it fancy? But methought along The withered fringes of the tangled grass A few belated crickets sent a shrill Of hesitating song —this, too, must pass;

Their little voices still On mead and hill.

The night wind rises and the clouds which spume Dark from the faint and starrylighted west Are edged with fire against their heavy gloom. 'Tis time that I should seek the thoughtless rest Which day denies—much that we deeply prize Doth stir the mind's reflections and awake The pains which else had slumbered—in such wise Rich, fruitful autumn, dear, for thine own sake

Through thy most fair disguiseWe see Death's eyes.