October by John Jay Chapman

Lyrics

Clear as the dew it kindles on the spray Across the shadows of each shelving lawn The rising sun, with low and level ray Scatters the cold, gray phantoms of the dawn Like ghosts they flee, like dreams expire Within the elemental fire Of our first calm October day A day all zenith; the enclosing air Like to the lens of a vast telescope Shows the enameled globe, which now doth wear Its gayest motley; every jutting slope And quiet spire appears both far and near Seen through the splendor of the atmosphere Something Elysian,—a faint tang of joy,— Breathes from the moisture of the open field Recalling Spring, yet Spring with no alloy Of heartache, such as hovers on the view Of things in promise. Here is harvest-yield; Old Earth hath done her best and can no further do The yellowing pages of Earth's ledger lie In new-cropped acres, open to the sky; A text that all may understand With margins where wild vines expand In crimson revelry Beyond the valley lies a ledge Of rocky pasture and a tier Of hemlock and of juniper; And close to the embattled edge,— Their roots embedded in the stony stairs,— The agèd cedars flaunt their burning wares Like banners in a gallery They hang above the bright ravine Where from the mountains to the sea The farms and villages are seen All clad in twinkling sheen Above our heads the mountain bleak Bears his cold summit to the view As one in scorn of earthly mists Who, in his gesture, seems to seek The silent depths of the transparent blue Where nought save light exists There penetrates Nor sight nor mutter from the world below Nor sound of joy or woe; For that clear realm is deaf to man's debates There nought save Contemplation ever came; For reason is extinguished by the glow And passion dies within its parent flame Rays of religion, shafts of power From that eternal upper day Descend on man, the creature of an hour And whirl him as a leaf is whirled away Born to phantasmal contest, he survives A moment merely; yet the fray The whirlwind, seizes other lives And, raging like a mountain fire Burns on with inextinguishable ire Here, here, from this ærial zone Flows all the force the world has known All insight and all sight The substance of all just resolves Solid and pure; The rest is lightning, here is light: And when the varied earth dissolves This shall endure But see! above the sinking sun The angel of the west Has set his star against the mountain's breast: October's day is done The shadows mount, the twilight clear Shows all of Autumn's mellow husk Where one belated teamster in the dusk Circles the plain, like a dark charioteer Who scatters secretly the gleaming seeds And drives his mystic steeds Before the tread of the pursuing year