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Ode to the West Wind

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

1379

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

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If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision-I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee-tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]

AUTUMN: A DIRGE

THE warm sun is failing; the bleak wind is wailing;

The bare boughs are sighing; the pale flowers are dying;

And the Year

On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

Come, months, come away,

From November to May;

In your saddest array

Follow the bier

Of the dead, cold Year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre,

"When the Frost is on the Punkin"

1381

The chill rain is falling; the nipped worm is crawling;
The rivers are swelling; the thunder is knelling

For the Year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling;

Come, months, come away;
Put on white, black, and gray;

Let your light sisters play-
Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead, cold Year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]

AUTUMN

THE morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,

I'll put a trinket on.

Emily Dickinson [1830-1886]

"WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN"

WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the

shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey

cock,

And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful

rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed

the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the

shock.

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is hereOf course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the

bees;

But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock-
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the
shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,

And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries-kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below-the clover overhead!-
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the
shock.

Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! . . .

I don't know how to tell it--but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on

me

I'd want to 'commodate 'em-all the whole-indurin' flockWhen the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. James Whitcomb Riley [1852-1916]

KORE

YEA, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves,
And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms,

And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves.
Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms,

Old October

Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist,

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And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.

With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes,

And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep,
With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,
She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep;
While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware
Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.

The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams;
There was no sound amid the sacred boughs.
Nor any mournful music in her streams:
Only I saw the shadow on her brows,
Only I knew her for the yearly slain,

And wept, and weep until she come again.

Frederic Manning [18

OLD OCTOBER

HAIL, old October, bright and chill,
First freedman from the summer sun!
Spice high the bowl, and drink your fill!
Thank heaven, at last the summer's done!

Come, friend, my fire is burning bright,
A fire's no longer out of place,

How clear it glows! (there's frost to-night,)
It looks white winter in the face.

You've been to "Richard." Ah! you've seen
A noble play: I'm glad you went;
But what on earth does Shakespeare mean
By "winter of our discontent?"

Be mine the tree that feeds the fire!

Be mine the sun knows when to set!
Be mine the months when friends desire
To turn in here from cold and wet!

The sentry sun, that glared so long
O'erhead, deserts his summer post;
Ay, you may brew it hot and strong:
"The joys of winter"-come, a toast!

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