In Anticipation of Autumn
W. M. MacKeracher
1891
But now the Summer hastens to its close,
And soon will Song a different aspect wear,
Sweeping terrific, clad in ghostly snows,
And lit by the flash of the Boreal glare,
Or, but a poet in his easy chair;
And her most pleasing aspect now beguiles
What time is hers with deft, endearing air:
With gorgeous gold she decks her garments, whiles
Her melancholy face with Indian Summer smiles.
Thy very smile sends sadness to my heart.
Farewell! sweet love, the happy hour is o'er:
Too well I knew that we again must part.
Her garments trail the fond, reluctant floor.
But I shall ne'er forget the dress she wore,
Her looks, her words, the pleasing song she sung—
'Tis melody will charm me more and more,
'Tis music that will keep my spirit young,
'Tis joyance in my soul, though jarring on my tongue.
I've hummed the music after thee as well
As changing tones of youth allowed, and fear,
And vexing sprites that choke the upward swell.
But yet, perchance, some bosom it may cheer,
By recollection making thee more dear
To those who've drunk thy music at its spring,
To some, mayhap, who never learned to hear,—
Alas! poor, wretched souls!—its sound may bring
Some semblance of thy strain, some wish to hear thee sing.
What though I have expounded nothing new,
And traced, I trow, unworthily the old?
Song is no mystic science.—Men may do
Strange things in other spheres, and may unfold
Secrets unthought, tell tales before untold;
But what thou wilt, the bard; nor less, nor more.
And to the mind informed in Nature's mould
Thou has revealed thyself—the same of yore,
The same to-day thou art, and shalt be evermore.
Let them who will, content themselves to sing
In trifling pageantry and gilt array,
To pluck the song-beads from the shimmering string
That skirts thy robe. But such my soul doth sway
As makes me hang upon thy breast and say
"I love thee!"—as a mistress?—then mine own;
Blindly and recklessly?—some future day,
Mine eye, from thine clearer and stronger grown,
May thrid the straggling stars and search the deepening dawn.
O, make my soul an argosy of song,
Tranquilly floating on a sea of peace,
As with her rowers beautiful and strong
Some trireme bears among the Isles of Greece
With music-muffled oars! Give safe release
From murky moorings, storms, and rocks that jar,
And let its pearls in purity increase,
Until with singing sails it cross the bar
To melt in golden waves with gems of many a star!
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