September

Now the Earth yields her strength! The teeming ground
Seems lighten’d of its curse: on every side
The hills rejoice, the valleys far and wide
Stand thick with corn, and harvest-songs resound.
The garden its rich dainties scatters round,
While lane and copse, by Nature only till’d,
An ample store of humbler fruitage yield,
Berries and nuts by Autumn suns embrown’d
But, ah! amid such visions of delight,
Those few rich tints upon the forest boughs,
Like the fine flush, so ominously bright,
Which on her victim’s cheek Consumption throws,
Too truly speak of wasting and decay,
And, sighing, I pursue my woodland way.