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| GREY Winter hath gone, like a wearisome guest, | |
| And, behold, for repayment, | |
| September comes in with the wind of the West | |
| And the Spring in her raiment! | |
| The ways of the frost have been filled of the flowers, | 5 |
| While the forest discovers | |
| Wild wings, with a halo of hyaline hours, | |
| And a music of lovers. | |
| |
| September, the maid with the swift, silver feet! | |
| She glides, and she graces | 10 |
| The valleys of coolness, the slopes of the heat, | |
| With her blossomy traces; | |
| Sweet month, with a mouth that is made of a rose, | |
| She lightens and lingers | |
| In spots where the harp of the evening glows, | 15 |
| Attuned by her fingers. | |
| |
| The stream from its home in the hollow hill slips | |
| In a darling old fashion; | |
| And the day goeth down with a song on its lips | |
| Whose key-note is passion. | 20 |
| Far out in the fierce, bitter front of the sea | |
| I stand, and remember | |
| Dead things that were brothers and sisters of thee, | |
| Resplendent September. | |
| |
| The West, when it blows at the fall of the noon | 25 |
| And beats on her beaches, | |
| So filled with a tender and tremulous tune | |
| That touches and teaches; | |
| The stories of Youth, of the burden of Time, | |
| And the death of Devotion, | 30 |
| Come back with the wind, and are themes of the rhyme | |
| In the waves of the ocean. | |
| |
| We, having a secret to others unknown, | |
| In the cool mountain-mosses, | |
| May whisper together, September, alone | 35 |
| Of our loves and our losses. | |
| One word for her beauty, and one for the grace | |
| She gave to the hours; | |
| And then we may kiss her, and suffer her face | |
| To sleep with the flowers. | 40 |
| |
| High places that knew of the gold and the white | |
| On the forehead of Morning | |
| Now darken and quake, and the steps of the Night | |
| Are heavy with warning! | |
| Her voice in the distance is lofty and loud | 45 |
| Through its echoing gorges; | |
| She hath hidden her eyes in a mantle of cloud, | |
| And her feet in the surges! | |
| |
| On the tops of the hills, on the turreted cones— | |
| Chief temples of thunder— | 50 |
| The gale, like a ghost, in the middle watch moans, | |
| Gliding over and under. | |
| The sea, flying white through the rack and the rain, | |
| Leapeth wild at the forelands; | |
| And the plover, whose cry is like passion with pain, | 55 |
| Complains in the moorlands. | |
| |
| Oh, season of changes—of shadow and shine— | |
| September the splendid! | |
| My song hath no music to mingle with thine, | |
| And its burden is ended; | 60 |
| But thou, being born of the winds and the sun, | |
| By mountain, by river, | |
| Mayst lighten and listen, and loiter and run, | |
| With thy voices for ever. | |
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