Page 15 - Poetry-Country

The Summer’s Aftermath

No more above its verdant robe, like dainty jewels pink and blue,
The morning-glory’s slender cups are held to catch the shining dew;
No more the lily’s graceful stalk holds bells which every zephyr rings,
No longer in the happy breeze the rose her fragrant censer swings.

But purple pansies, here and there, uplift brave faces toward the sky,
And mignonette its perfume flings, like gold, among the passers-by;
The cardinals in sheltered spots disclaim the coming winter’s gloom,
And autumn asters, many-hued, make bright the garden-beds
with bloom.

The stately corn in regiments uplifts its serried blades on high,
And ghosts of summer’s thistle flowers on gauzy wings go sailing by;
The white-robed frost has not yet laid, with chilling touch, his
mantle brown
On solidago’s golden head, or meadow clover’s crimson crown.

Still sings the robin in the wood, and, from some corner out of sight,
The quail his mellow call repeats for that unknown, long-lost “Bob
White.”
The blackbirds chatter in the tree, the crickets chirp beside the path
Where drowsily the cattle stand knee-deep in fragrant aftermath.

A darker green is on the pine, a deeper blue is in the sky,
From where embowering willows bend, with sweeter song the
stream slips by.
In shadowy hollows by its side the partridge beats his muffled drum,
And autumn apples blush beneath the lusty kisses of the sun.

The gold that binds the birch’s brow, the rubies from the maple’s
crown,
Through mellow depths of slumb’rous air in lazy spirals settle down;
The Autumn trails her azure robe across the mountain’s ample breast,
And overlays the level land with blessedness of perfect rest.

—Beth Day (Demorest, 1885)

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