THE AUTUMN WOODS
What beauty in the Autumn woods?
Where, in the calm, deep solitudes,
The amber sunshine finds its way,
And checkered light and shadows play.
Such beauty everywhere we turn!
The moss-green rock and drooping fern,
The woodland flowers and trailing vines,
The singing brooks and sighing pines,
The murmur of the gentle breeze
That stirs the yellow chestnut leaves,
Till softly in the grasses brown
The round and prickly burs drop down.
The maples are in bright array
Of mottled gold and crimson gay;
The oaks in deepest scarlet dressed;
In cloth of gold are all the rest
Except that now and then between
There stands a tall, dark evergreen
That sheds its spicy fragrance round
And drops its cones upon the ground.
With asters white and purple tinged,
And golden-rod, the woods are fringed,
With scarlet berries peeping through
Where wild grapes hang, of purple hue,
And fiery fingered ivy clings,
While milk-weed floats on downy wings.
The crickets chirp and insects hum,
For glorious Autumn now has come.
-- Eva J. Beede.