SEPTEMBER THIRTIETH

You do not look on life and death as I do.
There are two angels, that attend unseen
Each one of us, and in great books record
Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down
The good ones, after every action closes
His volume, and ascends with it to God.
The other keeps his dreadful day-book open
Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,
The record of the action fades away,
And leaves a line of white across the page.

The Golden Legend

TH

HOU comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, With banners, by great gales incessant fanned, Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand, And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain! Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne, Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land.

Autumn (Sonnets)

OCTOBER SECOND

Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain,
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heavens' o'erhanging eaves,
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden

leaves !

Autumn (Sonnets)

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

The Rainy Day

OCTOBER FOURTH

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

The Rainy Day

OCTOBER FIFTH

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

The Rainy Day

OCTOBER SIXTH

Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves.

The Birds of Killingworth

OCTOBER SEVENTH

And so the dreadful massacre began;

O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland

crests,

The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran.

Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their
breasts,

Or wounded crept away from sight of man,
While the young died of famine in their nests;
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words,
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!

The Birds of Killingworth

OCTOBER EIGHTH

Without the light of his majestic look, The wonder of the falling tongues of flame, The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day book. A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame, And drowned themselves despairing in the brook, While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, Lamenting the dead children of the air!

The Birds of Killingworth

OCTOBER NINTH

There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,

And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds.

Autumn (Earlier Poems)