EARLY NOVEMBER

O the sweetness of the jangle

Of the sheep-bells, in the tangle

Of the wild witch-hazel bushes and the spreading red-bud trees!

— Ah, the silence when it ceases!

But the beauty of the fleeces,

And the soft eyes peering at me through the woodbine lattices!

And beyond them, and the network

Of the dogwood, and the fretwork

Of the interlacing grapevines, and across the meadow land,

I can see the color showing

Where the winter-wheat is growing,

With the corn encamped about it like a plumed protecting band.

While among the many-seeded

Tufts of russet weeds, unheeded,

Truant ducks go idly twinkling through the yellow stubble-field;

Their white feathers like the glosses

Of the shining silver bosses

That adorn the tawny luster of an olden golden shield.

In long loops from off the hedges,

Trailing downward to the edges

Of the wayside grass and clover-leaves, fine cobweb threads are wound;

Fairy clues that lead my eager

Errant fancy to beleaguer

Some concealed, enchanted chamber in the richly covered ground.

Till the sun begins the lighting

Of his western fires, that smiting

Through the orchard boughs are splintered into spears of ruddy flame;

An irradiating splendor

That transfigures all the slender

Little leafless twigs and branches with a glory without name!

O, I know the year is going!

Neither reaping-time nor sowing

Will restore the tender beauty of its blossoms that are dead:

Yet I cherish all their sweetness

In the ripeness and completeness

Of the gold and crimson fruitage that my heart has harvested.