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The Song of Autumn

I AM the time of the gladsome death; The blood-red season when Nature dies; I kill with my beautiful, balmy breath; The stricken leaf in my pathway lies.
Long have I journeyed these earthly hills; And oh! the summers that I have slain—Over the valleys, across the rills, I follow fleet in her sunny train.
A gentle kiss, and a whispered vow; A soft low lie in her listening ear—Her soul speeds over the mountain-brow— Laughing, I follow the funeral bier.
Yet men are charmed with my tinted hours; Forgetting the crime that I late have done—Forgetting the peace of the emerald bowers, Forgetting the smile of the summer sun.
Herald I am of that Spirit pale, Winter! the king of the ghostly days,When the waters sleep in the gloomy swale, When the thin winds wither the maple's blaze.
Fickle in faith ye mortals are— Bounty I bring of the bending grain—Ye gaze on your billowy fields afar, And bless the season which brings you gain.
But not care I what words, what cheer Shall greet me; welcome of knell or chime—I ever will walk with the waning year, Till the sands are sped in the glass of time.

Herbert L. Brewster.

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