Indian Summer

A soft veil dims the tender skies,

And half conceals from pensive eyes

 The bronzing tokens of the fall;

A calmness broods upon the hills,

And summer's parting dream distills

 A charm of silence over all.

The stacks of corn, in brown array,

Stand waiting through the placid day,

 Like tattered wigwams on the plain;

The tribes that find a shelter there

Are phantom peoples, forms of air,

 And ghosts of vanished joy and pain.

At evening when the crimson crest

Of sunset passes down the West,

 I hear the whispering host returning;

On far-off fields, by elm and oak,

I see the lights, I smell the smoke,—

 The Camp-fires of the Past are burning.