When the leaves, by thousands thinned, A thousand times have whirled in the wind, And the moon, with hollow cheek, Staring from her hollow height,
Consolation seems to seek From the dim, reechoing night; And the fog-streaks dead and white Lie like ghosts of lost delight
O'er highest earth and lowest sky; Then, Autumn, work thy witchery! Strew the ground with poppy-seeds, And let my bed be hung with weeds,
Growing gaunt and rank and tall, Drooping o'er me like a pall. Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mist Across my brow to turn and twist
Fold on fold, and leave me blind To all save visions in the mind. Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams I shall slumber, and in dreams
Slide through some long glen that burns With a crust of blood-red ferns And brown-withered wings of brake Like a burning lava-lake;—
So, urged to fearful, faster flow By the awful gasp, “Hahk! hahk!” of the crow, Shall pass by many a haunted rood Of the nutty, odorous wood;
Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom, Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom; Till, lured by light, reflected cloud, I burst aloft my watery shroud,
And upward through the ether sail Far above the shrill wind's wail;— But, falling thence, my soul involve With the dust dead flowers dissolve;
And, gliding out at last to sea, Lulled to a long tranquillity, The perfect poise of seasons keep With the tides that rest at neap.
So must be fulfilled the rite That giveth me the dead year's might; And at dawn I shall arise A spirit, though with human eyes,
A human form and human face; And where'er I go or stay, There the summer's perished grace Shall be with me, night and day.
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