The rich autumnal shadows fall;
The first brown leaf wheels slowly down;
And all along the orchard wall
The mosses gather deeper brown.
Through all the rounded golden hours
No sound steals in from village street;
Alone the chimes from distant towers
Float hourly through my still retreat.
Across the vale, the rugged hills
Are starting from their summer gloom,
And bursting heather glows and fills
Their skyward curves with purple bloom.
Again with autumn comes the time
When you and I would cross the vale,
And reach the mountain foot, and climb
Till stars renewed the evening tale.
I wander still where nature haunts
Her secret places seldom sought;
But even nature something wants —
A subtle something, deeply wrought.
And here alone I sit, and now
Thy voice is hushed; hut those dear eyes
That flashed beneath thy brave boy-brow
Are haunting me as daylight dies.
The sun slopes slowly to his rest,
This soft September afternoon,
Till all the color leaves the west,
And steeps the world in twilight gloom.