IMPATIENT

Some day, when summer’ s overpast,

And loosed by frost, in gold and brown

These greenly clinging leaves drift down,

When shrill winds hush

The robin red-breast and the thrush,

When all the skies are overcast

With racks of rain, so chill and gray

Not any burgeoning may be,—

Some day,

Across far foreign lands and vast

Unbounded spaces of the sea,

So homeward, homeward, journeying fast,

At last

She will come back to me!

I reckon up, in daily sum,

The time until that scarlet date;

I think the fall will never come,

So wearily I wait!

The hours seem leaguing to belate

The days, that never crept so slow;

And yet,

I used to love the summer so!

But now my heart may only fret

And pray for it to go.

And yearning so, with lashes wet,

I half forget

The greenery on every bough,

How red the poppies are, and how

Amid the tufted mignonette

The scented south-winds gently blow;

I heed them not,— I only know

Time never seemed so long as now!

I search the azure skies in vain,

No hint of autumn rain!

No hint of fall from bluebirds, nor

Green fields of growing grain.

Then idly reckoning, as before,

I strive anew to make less far

That glad date on the calendar;

To number less the days that are,

The changes fixed for sun and star,

The moons that yet must wax and wane;

Thus evermore

With fresh impatience, o’ er and o’ er,

I count the hours;— yet still am fain

To tell them over once again.

O hasten, hasten, autumn days!

Sear swift this dewy, summer green!

I am grown weary with delays;

Speed! Speed!

Bring bitter winds and chill, nor heed

The mellow sweets between!

What if the dead leaves strew the ways,

And southward all the songs take wing?

Despite all cheerless frosts that be,

My eager heart awaits the spring,

So knowing she will surely bring

The birds and May to me.