To Fall by Madison Cawein — Read

/ Sad-hearted spirit of the solitudes, / Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods! / Gray-gowned with fog, gold-girdled with the gloom / Of tawny twilights; burdened with perfume / Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist; / And all the beauty of the fire-kissed / Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way, / Odorous of death and drowsy with decay. / I think of thee as seated 'mid the showers / Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers, -- / The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June / Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune / A singer gives her soul's wild melody, -- / Watching the squirrel store his granary. / Or, 'mid old orchards I have pictured thee: / Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back; / One lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black; / Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweet / The rosy russets tumbled at thy feet. / Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers? / A heart-sick bird that sang of happier hours? / A cricket dirging days that soon must die? / Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?