Now with a sigh November comes to the brooding land. <br />Yellowing now toward winter the willows of Carmel stand. <br />Under the pine her needles lie redder with the rain. <br />Gipsy birds from the northland visit our woods again. <br /> <br />Hunters wait on the hillside, watching the plowman pass <br />And the red hawk's shadow gliding over the new-born grass. <br />Purple and white the sea-gulls swarm at the river-mouth. <br />Pearl of mutable heavens towers upon the south. <br /> <br />Westward pine and cypress stand in a sadder light. <br />Flocks of the veering curlew flash for an instant white. <br />Wreaths of the mallard, shifting, melt on the vacant blue. <br />Over the hard horizon dreams are calling anew. <br /> <br />Dumb with the sense of wonder hidden from hand and eye,— <br />Wistful yet for the Secret ocean and earth deny — <br />Baffled for Beauty's haunting, hearts are peaceless today, <br />Seeing the dusk of sapphire deepen within the bay. <br /> <br />Far on the kelp the heron stands for awhile at rest. <br />The lichen-colored breaker hollows a leaning breast. <br />Desolate, hard and tawny, the sands lie clean and wide, <br />Dry with the wafted sea-wind, wet with the fallen tide. <br /> <br />Early the autumn sunset tinges to mauve the foam; <br />Shyly the rabbit, feeding, crosses the road to home.' <br />Daylight, lingering golden, touches the tallest tree, <br />Ere the rain, like silver harp-strings, comes slanting in from sea.<br /><br />George Sterling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/autumn-in-carmel/
