A soft veil dims the tender skies, <br />And half conceals from pensive eyes <br />The bronzing tokens of the fall; <br />A calmness broods upon the hills, <br />And summer's parting dream distills <br />A charm of silence over all. <br /> <br />The stacks of corn, in brown array, <br />Stand waiting through the placid day, <br />Like tattered wigwams on the plain; <br />The tribes that find a shelter there <br />Are phantom peoples, forms of air, <br />And ghosts of vanished joy and pain. <br /> <br />At evening when the crimson crest <br />Of sunset passes down the West, <br />I hear the whispering host returning; <br />On far-off fields, by elm and oak, <br />I see the lights, I smell the smoke,-- <br />The Camp-fires of the Past are burning.<br /><br />Henry Van Dyke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/indian-summer-4/
