Mellow hazes, lowly trailing <br />Over wood and meadow, veiling <br />Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing <br />Sailor-like to foreign lands; <br />And the north-wind overleaping <br />Summer's brink, and floodlike sweeping <br />Wrecks of roses where the weeping <br />Willows wring their helpless hands. <br /> <br />Flared, like Titan torches flinging <br />Flakes of flame and embers, springing <br />From the vale the trees stand swinging <br />In the moaning atmosphere; <br />While in dead'ning-lands the lowing <br />Of the cattle, sadder growing, <br />Fills the sense to overflowing <br />With the sorrow of the year. <br /> <br />Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter <br />Sings the brook in rippled meter <br />Under boughs that lithely teeter <br />Lorn birds, answering from the shores <br />Through the viny, shady-shiny <br />Interspaces, shot with tiny <br />Flying motes that fleck the winy <br />Wave-engraven sycamores. <br /> <br />Fields of ragged stubble, wrangled <br />With rank weeds, and shocks of tangled <br />Corn, with crests like rent plumes dangled <br />Over Harvest's battle-piain; <br />And the sudden whir and whistle <br />Of the quail that, like a missile, <br />Whizzes over thorn and thistle, <br />And, a missile, drops again. <br /> <br />Muffled voices, hid in thickets <br />Where the redbird stops to stick its <br />Ruddy beak betwixt the pickets <br />Of the truant's rustic trap; <br />And the sound of laughter ringing <br />Where, within the wild-vine swinging, <br />Climb Bacchante's schoolmates, flinging <br />Purple clusters in her lap. <br /> <br />Rich as wine, the sunset flashes <br />Round the tilted world, and dashes <br />Up the sloping west and splashes <br />Red foam over sky and sea-- <br />Till my dream of Autumn, paling <br />In the splendor all-prevailing, <br />Like a sallow leaf goes sailing <br />Down the silence solemnly.<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-dream-of-autumn/
