How soothing sound the gentle airs that move <br />The innumerable leaves, high overhead, <br />When autumn first, from the long avenue, <br />That lifts its arching height of ancient shade, <br />Steals here and there a leaf! <br />Within the gloom, <br />In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear, <br />Studding the glens of fern; in solemn shade <br />Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all, <br />All make a sad sweet music, as they move, <br />Not undelightful to a stranger's heart. <br />They seem to say, in accents audible, <br />Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains <br />Of many a lithe and feathered chorister, <br />That through the depth of these incumbent woods <br />Made the long summer gladsome. <br />I have heard <br />To the deep-mingling sounds of organs clear, <br />(When slow the choral anthem rose beneath), <br />The glimmering minster, through its pillared aisles, <br />Echo;--but not more sweet the vaulted roof <br />Rang to those linked harmonies, than here <br />The high wood answers to the lightest breath <br />Of nature. <br />Oh, may such sweet music steal, <br />Soothing the cares of venerable age, <br />From public toil retired: may it awake, <br />As, still and slow, the sun of life declines, <br />Remembrances, not mournful, but most sweet; <br />May it, as oft beneath the sylvan shade <br />Their honoured owner strays, come like the sound <br />Of distant seraph harps, yet speaking clear! <br />How poor is every sound of earthly things, <br />When heaven's own music waits the just and pure!<br /><br />William Lisle Bowles<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/avenue-in-savernake-forest/
