September / George Arnold

 
September

        Sweet is the voice that calls
        From the babbling waterfalls
In meadows where the downy seeds are flying;
        And soft the breezes blow,
        And eddying come and go,
In faded gardens where the rose is dying.

        Among the stubbled corn
        The blithe quail pipes at morn,
The merry partridge drums in hidden places,
        And glittering insects gleam
        Above the reedy stream
Where busy spiders spin their filmy laces.

        At eve, cool shadows fall
        Across the garden wall,
And on the clustered grapes to purple turning,
        And pearly vapors lie
        Along the eastern sky,
Where the broad harvest-moon is redly burning.

        Ah, soon on field and hill
        The wind shall whistle chill,
And patriarch swallows call their flocks together
        To fly from frost and snow,
        And seek for lands where blow
The fairer blossoms of a balmier weather.

        The pollen-dusted bees
        Search for the hone-lees
That linger in the last flowers of September,
        While plaintive mourning doves
        Coo sadly to their loves
Of the dead summer they so well remember.

        The cricket chirps all day,
        "O fairest summer, stay!”
The squirrel eyes askance the chestnuts browning;
        The wild fowl fly afar
        Above the foamy bar,
And hasten southward ere the skies are frowning.

        Now comes a fragrant breeze
        Through the dark cedar-trees
And round about my temples fondly lingers,
        In gentle playfulness,
        Like to the soft caress
Bestowed in happier days by loving fingers.

        Yet, though a sense of grief
        Comes with the falling leaf,
And memory makes the summer doubly pleasant,
        In all my autumn dreams
        A future summer gleams
Passing the fairest glories of the present!

~~
George Arnold (1831-1865)
from Drift: A seashore idyl; and other poems, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Arnold biography