October

October
2293

The mellow lighted days are come, the gladdest of the year,
Of painted woods, ripe fruits, and air luxuri- ously clear;
When Earth so gracefully fulfils the promise of the Spring,
And decks herself with royal tinte for the pres ence of her King

What tho’ the frost has pinched her cheek; it made the landscape glow,
And the scathed mead, and the browner hill, has made some creature grow;
When Summer’s work is finished well, ’tis fit she should expire
On the billowy breast of Color, ‘neath the touch of living fire

Like the yellow sun retreating thro’ dim moun- tains far away,
She should leave those bright remembrances that gild the path of day;
So that we may catch the glory and the beauties as they go,
While we revere the coming age whose blossoms fall in anow

Tho’ the forest’s brief mosaic seems an emblem of our life;
Tho’ bereaved like trees of Autumn, by the whirl of winds at strife;
Tho’ the things that we have cherished may be cut up, like the coru;
Tho’ our dead hopes all around us, like the frosted leaves at morn;

Look we up, thro’ rust of sorrow, see the dia- mond fields above-
Glistening back like answering teardrops in the eyes of those we love
Vanish into greater glory; then to earth, whose dying flowers
Bloom again in brighter beauty and in better Jears than ours

Tho’ it all shall fade and wither, all the beauti- ful of earth,
Yet we know that, without dying, there could be no second birth,
This earnest be our comfort, for Earth’s off- spring when they die
Proclaim, as Sumner never could, a resurrection nigh
-Joel N Eno,