By An Autumn Stream

Now overhead, Where the rivulet loiters and stops, The bittersweet hangs from the tops Of the alders and cherries Its bunches of beautiful berries, Orange and red. And the snowbirds flee, Tossing up on the far brown field, Now flashing and now concealed, Like fringes of spray That vanish and gleam on the gray Field of the sea. Flickering light, Come the last of the leaves down borne, And patches of pale white corn In the wind complain, Like the slow rustle of rain Noticed by night. Withered and thinned, The sentinel mullein looms, With the pale gray shadowy plumes Of the goldenrod; And the milkweed opens its pod, Tempting the wind. Aloft on the hill, A cloudrift opens and shines Through a break in its gorget of pines, And it dreams at my feet In a sad, silvery sheet, Utterly still. All things that be Seem plunged into silence, distraught, By some stern, some necessitous thought: It wraps and enthralls Marsh, meadow, and forest; and falls Also on me.