By the Autumn Sea / Paul Hamilton Hayne

By the Autumn Sea

Fair as the dawn of the fairest day,
Sad as the evening's tender gray,
By the latest lustre of sunset kissed,
That wavers and wanes through an amber mist,
There cometh a dream of the past to me,
On the desert sands, by the autumn sea.

All heaven is wrapped in a mystic veil,
And the face of the ocean is dim and pale,
And there rises a wind front the chill northwest,
That seemeth the wail of a soul's unrest,
As the twilight falls, and the vapors flee
Far over the wastes of the autumn sea.

A single ship through the gloaming glides
Upborne on the swell of the seaward tides;
And above the gleam of her topmost spar
Are the virgin eyes of the vesper-star
That shine with an angel's ruth on me,
A hopeless waif, by the autumn sea.

The wings of the ghostly beach-birds gleam
Through the shimmering surf, and the curlew's scream
Falls faintly shrill from the darkening height;
The first weird sigh on the lips of Night
Breathes low through the sedge and the blasted tree,
With a murmur of doom, by the autumn sea.

Oh, sky-enshadowed and yearning main,
Your gloom but deepens this human pain;
Those waves seem big with a nameless care,
That sky is a type of the heart's despair,
As I linger and muse by the sombre lea,
And the night shades close on the autumn sea.
~~
Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886)
from Poems, 1882

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Hamilton Hayne biography

October / Paul Hamilton Hayne

October

The passionate Summer's dead! the sky's aglow,
     With roseate flushes of matured desire,
The winds at eve are musical and low,
     As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,
     Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,
Whose pomp of strange procession upward rolls,
With gorgeous blazonry of pictured scrolls,
     To celebrate the summer's past renown;
     Ah, me! how regally the Heavens look down,
O'ershadowing beautiful autumnal woods,
     And harvest fields with hoarded increase brown,
And deep-toned majesty of golden floods,
     That raise their solemn dirges to the sky,
     To swell the purple pomp that floateth by.

~~
Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886)
from Poems, 1855

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Hamilton Hayne biography

"October" read by David Novak. Courtesy David Novak reads poetry.

The Breezes of June / Paul Hamilton Hayne

The Breezes of June

            Oh! sweet and soft,
            Returning oft,
      As oft they pass benignly,
The warm June breezes come and go,
Through golden rounds of murmurous flow,
            At length to sigh,
            Wax faint and die,
Far down the panting primrose sky,
                Divinely!

            Though soft and low
            These breezes blow,
      Their voice is passion's wholly;
And ah! our hearts go forth to meet
The burden of their music sweet,
            Ere yet it sighs,
            Faints, falters, dies
Down the rich path of sunset skies —
                Half glad, half melancholy!

            Bend, bend thine ear!
            Oh! hark and hear
        What vows each blithe new-comer,
Each warm June breeze that comes and goes,
Is whispering to the royal rose
        And star-pale lily, trembling nigh,
        Ere yet in subtlest harmony
            Its murmurs die,
            Wax faint and die
On thy flushed bosom, passionate sky
                Of youthful summer!

~~
Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886)
from Poems, 1882

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Hamilton Hayne biography