Now overhead, <br />Where the rivulet loiters and stops, <br />The bittersweet hangs from the tops <br />Of the alders and cherries <br />Its bunches of beautiful berries, <br />Orange and red. <br /> <br />And the snowbirds flee, <br />Tossing up on the far brown field, <br />Now flashing and now concealed, <br />Like fringes of spray <br />That vanish and gleam on the gray <br />Field of the sea. <br /> <br />Flickering light, <br />Come the last of the leaves down borne, <br />And patches of pale white corn <br />In the wind complain, <br />Like the slow rustle of rain <br />Noticed by night. <br /> <br />Withered and thinned, <br />The sentinel mullein looms, <br />With the pale gray shadowy plumes <br />Of the goldenrod; <br />And the milkweed opens its pod, <br />Tempting the wind. <br /> <br />Aloft on the hill, <br />A cloudrift opens and shines <br />Through a break in its gorget of pines, <br />And it dreams at my feet <br />In a sad, silvery sheet, <br />Utterly still. <br /> <br />All things that be <br />Seem plunged into silence, distraught, <br />By some stern, some necessitous thought: <br />It wraps and enthralls <br />Marsh, meadow, and forest; and falls <br />Also on me.<br /><br />Archibald Lampman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/by-an-autumn-stream/
