AUTUMN WINDS.

“Oh! Autumn winds, what means this plaintive wailing

Around the quiet homestead where we dwell?

Whence come ye, say, and what the story mournful

That your weird voices ever seek to tell —

Whispering or clamoring, beneath the casements,

Rising in shriek or dying off in moan,

But ever breathing, menace, fear, or anguish

In every thrilling and unearthly tone?”

“We come from far off and from storm-tossed oceans,

Where vessels bravely battle with fierce gale,—

Mere playthings of our stormy, restless power,

We rend them quickly, shuddering mast and sail;

And with their, stalwart, gallant crews we hurl them

Amid the hungry waves that for them wait,

Nor leave one floating spar nor fragile taffrail

To tell unto the world their dreary fate.”

“But He who holds you, wrathful winds of Autumn,

Within the hollow of His mighty hand,

Can stay your onward course of reckless fury,

Your demon wrath, or eerie sport command,

Changing your rudest blast to zephyr gentle

As rocks the rose in summer evenings still,

Calming the ocean and yourselves enchaining

By simple fiat of Almighty Will.”

“We've been, too in the close and crowded city

Where want is often forced to herd with sin;

And our cold breath has pierced through without pity,

Bare, ruined hovel and worn garments thin;

Through narrow chink and broken window pouring

Draughts rife with fever and with deadly chill,

Choosing our victims‘ mid old age and childhood,

Or tender, fragile infancy at will.”

“Oh, Autumn blasts, He, whose kind care doth temper

The searching wind unto the small shorn lamb,

To those poor shiv'ring victims, too, can render

Thy keenest, sharpest blasts, both mild and calm

Rave on — rave on, around our happy homestead

Upon this dark and wild November night,

Ye do but work out your God-given mission,

Mere humble creatures of our Father's might.”

“But, listen, we come, too, from graveyards lonely,

From mocking revels held‘ mid tombstones tall,

Tearing the withered leaves from off the branches,

The clinging ivy from the time-stained wall,—

Uprooting, blighting every tiny leaflet

That hid the grave's bleak nakedness from sight,

Driving the leaves in hideous, death like dances,

Around the lowly mounds, the grave-stones white.”

“And, what of that, ye cruel winds of Autumn?

Spring will return again with hope and mirth,

Clothing with tender green the budding branches,

Decking with snowdrops, violets, the earth;

And, oh! sweet hope, sublime and most consoling,

The sacred dust within those graves shall rise

In God's good time, to reign on thrones of glory

With Him, beyond the cloudless, golden skies.”