October. OCTOBER skies are misty, cool and gray, Whose afternoon is hush'd and wintry brief. And Night sends up her pale cold moon, and spills White mist around the hollows of the hills, Phantoms of firth or lake; the peasant sees His cot and stackyard, with the homestead trees, In-islanded; but no vain terror thrills His perfect harvesting; he sleeps at ease. ALLINGHAM. A Winter Night. How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh, That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Seems like a canopy which love has spread A metaphor of peace; all form a scene SHELLEY. Picture of Winter. LASTLY came Winter, clothed all in frieze, With which his feeble steps he stayed still; The Snow Shower. STAND here by my side, and turn, I pray, They sink in the dark and silent lake. See how, in a living swarm, they come From the chambers beyond that misty veil; Rush prone from the sky like summer hail. Dissolved in the dark and silent lake. Here, delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud Flake after flake All drown'd in the dark and silent lake. And some, as on tender wings they glide Come clinging along their unsteady way: Soon sinks in the dark but silent lake. Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste As myriads, by myriads madly chased, They fling themselves from their shadowy height. The fair, frail creatures of middle sky, What speed they make with the grave so nigh: Flake after flake, To lie in the dark and silent lake! 1 see in thy gentle eyes a tear: They turn to me in sorrowful thought; Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear, Who were for a time, and now are not; Like these fair children of cloud and frost, That glisten a moment and then are lost; Flake after flake 'All lost in the dark and silent lake. Yet look again, for the clouds divide : A sunbeam falls from the opening skies. At rest in the dark and silent lake. BRYANT. The Dead Cold Year. THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Come, months, come away, Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, For the year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling; Come, months, come away; Put on white, black, and gray, Let your light sisters play- Of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. Early Dawn. SHELLEY. THE point of one white star is quivering still As the waves fade, and as the burning shreds Of woven cloud unravel in pale air: 'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not The Eolian music of her sea-green plumes Winnowing the crimson dawn? Morning-Song. SHELLEY. HARK!-hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And, winking, Mary-buds begin With every thing that pretty bin : Arise, arise! SHAKESPEARE. Daybreak. I. DAY had awaken'd all things that be, The lark, and the thrush, and the swallow free, The crickets were still in the meadow and hill: SHELLEY. II. SEE, the day begins to break, Many a note and many a lay. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. III. SEE, love! what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east! SHAKESPEARE. |