AUTUMN.

There is a fearful spirit busy now.

Already have the elements unfurled

Their banners: the great sea-wave is upcurled:

The cloud comes: the fierce winds begin to blow

About, and blindly on their errands go;

And quickly will the pale red leaves be hurled

From their dry boughs, and all the forest world

Stripped of its pride, be like a desert show.

I love that moaning music which I hear

In the bleak gusts of autumn, for the soul

Seems gathering tidings from another sphere,

And, in sublime mysterious sympathy,

Man’s bounding spirit ebbs and swells more high,

Accordant to the billow’s loftier roll.[347]

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