sun a splintered splendor was
In sober trees that broke and blurred,
That afternoon we went together
In droning hum and whirling buzz,
Where hard the dinning locust whirred,
Through fields of golden-rod a-feather.

So sweet it was to look and lean
To your young face and feel the light
Of eyes that fondled mine unsaddened!
The laugh that left lips more serene;
The words that blossomed like the white
Life-everlasting there and gladdened.

Maturing Summer, you were fraught
With wiser beauties then than now
Parades rich Autumn's red November;
This stuns: there dreams no subtle thought
As then on hinting bush and bough--
But now I am alone, remember.

11.

Through iron-weeds and roses
And bronzing beech and oak,
Old porches it discloses,
Above the briars and roses
Fall's feeble sunbeams soak.

Neglected walks that tangle
The dodder-strangled grass;
Its chimney shows one angle
Heaped with dead leaves that spangle
The paths that round it pass.

The early mists that bury
And hide them in its rooms,
From spider closets--very
Dim with old webs--will hurry
Out in the raining glooms.

They haunt each stair and basement;
They stand on hearth and porch;
Lean from each paneless casement,
Or in the moonlight's lacement
Fly with a phantom torch.

There is a sense of frost here;
And gusts that sob away
Of something that was lost here,
Long, long ago was lost here,
But what, they can not say.

There croons no owl to startle
Despondency within;
No raven o'er its portal
To scare the daring mortal
And guard its cellared sin.

The creaking road descries it
This side the dusty toll;
The farmer passing eyes it;
None stops t' philosophize it,
This symbol of a soul.

12.

Though the dog-tooth violet come
With the shower,
And the wild-bee haunt and hum
Every flower,
We shall never wend as when
Love laughed leading us from men
Over violet vale and glen,
Where the red-bird sang an hour,
And we heard the partridge drum.

Here October shadows pray,
Till one stills
Joyance, where for buried May
Sob the rills:
So love's vision has arisen
Of the lon