Late October.

Ah, haughty hills, sardonic solitudes, What wizard touch hath, crowning you with gold, Cast Tyrian purple o'er broad-shouldered woods, And to your pride anointed empire sold For wan traditioned death, whose misty moods Shake each huge throne of quarried shadows cold? Now where the agate-foliaged forests sleep, Bleak briars are ruby-berried, and the brush Flames—when the winds armsful of motion heap In wincing gusts upon it—amber blush; The beech an inner beryle breaks from deep Encrusting topaz of a sullen flush. Dead gold, dead bronze, dull amethystine rose, Rose cameo, in day's gray, somber spar Of smoky quartz—intaglioed beauty—glows Luxuriance of color. Trunks that are Vast organs antheming the winds' wild woes A faded sun and pale night's paler star. Bulged from its cup the dark-brown acorn falls, And by its gnarly saucer in the streams Swells plumped; and here the spikey spruce-gum balls Rust maces of an ouphen host that dreams; Beneath the chestnut the split burry hulls Disgorge fat purses of sleek satin gleams. Burst silver white, nods an exploded husk Of snowy, woolly smoke the milk-weed's puff Along the orchard's fence, where in the dusk And ashen weeds,—as some grim Satyr's rough Red, breezy cheeks burn thro' his beard,—the brusque Crab apples laugh, wind-tumbled from above. Runs thro' the wasted leaves the crickets' click, Which saddest coignes of Melancholy cheers; One bird unto the sumach flits to pick Red, sour seeds; and thro' the woods one hears The drop of gummy walnuts; the railed rick Looms tawny in the field where low the steers. Some slim bud-bound Leimoniad hath flocked, The birds to Echo's shores, where flossy foams Boom low long cream-white cliffs.—Where once buzzed Unmillioned bees within unmillioned blooms, One hairy hummer cramps one bloom, frost mocked,—rocked A miser whose rich hives squeeze oozing combs. Twist some lithe maple and right suddenly A leafy storm of stars about you breaks— Some Hamadryad's tears: Unto her knee Wading the Naiad clears her brook that streaks Thro' wadded waifs: Hark! Pan for Helike Flutes melancholy by the minty creeks.