Come walk a mile with me--November!--Faintly
The long, blue hills lift to the eastern sky;
'Tis Indian-summer now--this day seems saintly,
Like some good martyr e'er he goes to die;
The skies are cloudless; not a breeze is blowing,
And silent is each bare and leafless form;
The brooks--how quiet!--I like not their flowing,
For oh,--it is the calm before the storm.
Yes, yes--e'en now--to Westward--look! a figure
Is sudden forming, stretching forth a wand,
Shaping a shape as of some giant, bigger
Than any fabled thing from Fairyland;
Higher and higher that strange shape is lifting,
Swifter and swifter its fleet heralds run,
Wider and wider its white breath is drifting
As lower sinks the slow decending sun;
And now--the storm!--the storm is on us. Hurry!
Yet see!--the myriad snow-flakes--see them come!
O Comrade!--See!--it is young Winter's flurry--
And yet 'tis but the storm that drives us home.