Autumn

Alice Cary [1820 - 1871]

SHORTER and shorter now the twilight clips 
        The days, as through the sunset gates they crowd, 
And Summer from her golden collar slips 
        And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud,

Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,

And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,

She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,

And tries the old tunes over for an hour.

The wind, whose tender whisper in the May

Set all the young blooms listening through th'grove,

Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day

And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her tire of red--

The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,

And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head

Against earth's chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,

Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,

Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,

Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn--

Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides--

Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn

Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look

Upon the withered world, but haste to bring

His lighted candle, and his story-book,

And live with me the poetry of Spring.

 

From The Last Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary [1873] .

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This collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis.
Collection © 1999-2002 Jone Johnson Lewis.

Citing poems from these pages:

Author. "Poem Title."  Women's History: Poems by Women. Jone Johnson Lewis, editor. URL: (date of logon)