When Autumn's melancholy robes the land With silence, and sad fadings mystical Of other years move thro’ the mellow fields, I turn unto this meadow of the dead,
Strewn with the leaves stormed from October trees, And wonder if my resting shall be dug Here by this cedar's moan or under the sway Of yonder cypress — lair of winds that rove
As Valkyries sent from Valhalla's court In search of worthy slain. And sundry times with questioning I tease The entombed of their estate — seeking to know
Whether‘ tis sweeter in the grave to feel The oblivion of Nature's silent flow, Or here to wander wistful o'er her face. Whether the harvesting of pain and joy
Which men call Life ends so, or whether death Pours the warm chrism of Immortality Into each human heart whose glow is spent. And oft the Silence hears me. For a voice
Of sighing wind may answer, or a gaze, Though wordless, from a marble seraph's face. Or sometimes from unspeakable deeps of gold, That ebb along the west, revealings wing
And tremble, like ethereal swift tongues Unskilled of human speech, about my heart — Till youth, age, death, even earth's all, it seems, Are but brave moments wakened in that Soul,
To whom infinities are as a span, Eternities as bird-flights o'er the sun, And worlds as sands blown from Sahara's wilds Into the ceaseless surging of the sea....
Then twilight hours lead back my wandered spirit From out the wilderness of mystery Whence none may find a path to the Unknown, And chastened to content I turn me home.
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