XLV.

As imperceptibly as grief The summer lapsed away, -- Too imperceptible, at last, To seem like perfidy.

A quietness distilled, As twilight long begun, Or Nature, spending with herself Sequestered afternoon.

The dusk drew earlier in, The morning foreign shone, -- A courteous, yet harrowing grace, As guest who would be gone.

And thus, without a wing, Or service of a keel, Our summer made her light escape Into the beautiful.

XLVI.

It can't be summer, -- that got through; It 's early yet for spring; There 's that long town of white to cross Before the blackbirds sing.

It can't be dying, -- it's too rouge, -- The dead shall go in white.

So sunset shuts my question down With clasps of chrysolite.

XLVII.

SUMMER'S OBSEQUIES.

The gentian weaves her fringes, The maple's loom is red.

My departing blossoms Obviate parade.

A brief, but patient illness, An hour to prepare; And one, below this morning, Is where the angels are.

It was a short procession, -- The bobolink was there, An aged bee addressed us, And then we knelt in prayer.

We trust that she was willing, -- We ask that we may be.

Summer, sister, seraph, Let us go with thee!

In the name of the bee And of the b.u.t.terfly And of the breeze, amen!

XLVIII.

FRINGED GENTIAN.

G.o.d made a little gentian; It tried to be a rose And failed, and all the summer laughed.

But just before the snows There came a purple creature That ravished all the hill; And summer hid her forehead, And mockery was still.

The frosts were her condition; The Tyrian would not come Until the North evoked it.

"Creator! shall I bloom?"

XLIX.

NOVEMBER.

Besides the autumn poets sing, A few prosaic days A little this side of the snow And that side of the haze.

A few incisive mornings, A few ascetic eyes, -- Gone Mr. Bryant's golden-rod, And Mr. Thomson's sheaves.

Still is the bustle in the brook, Sealed are the spicy valves; Mesmeric fingers softly touch The eyes of many elves.

Perhaps a squirrel may remain, My sentiments to share.

Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind, Thy windy will to bear!

L.

THE SNOW.

It sifts from leaden sieves, It powders all the wood, It fills with alabaster wool The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face Of mountain and of plain, -- Unbroken forehead from the east Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence, It wraps it, rail by rail, Till it is lost in fleeces; It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem, -- The summer's empty room, Acres of seams where harvests were, Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts, As ankles of a queen, -- Then stills its artisans like ghosts, Denying they have been.

LI.

THE BLUE JAY.

No brigadier throughout the year So civic as the jay.

A neighbor and a warrior too, With shrill felicity