A September Evening on the Banks of the Moshassuck
- "Now to the sessions of sweet, silent thought,
- I summon up remembrance of things past."
- Shakespeare's Sonnets.
Again September's golden day
Serenely still, intensely bright,
Fades on the umbered hills away
And melts into the coming night.
Again Moshassuck's silver tide
Reflects each green herb on its side,
Each tasselled wreath and tangling vine
Whose tenders o'er its margin twin.
And standing on its velvet short
Where yesternight with thee I stood,
I trace its devious course once more
Far winding on through vale and wood.
Now glimmering through yon golden mist,
By the last glinting sunbeams kissed,
Now lost where lengthening shadows fall
From hazel-copse and moss-fringed wall.
Near where yon rocks the stream inurn
The lonely gentian blossoms still,
Still wave the star-flower and the fern
O'er the soft outline of the hill;
While far aloft where pine-trees throw
Their shade athwart the sunset glow,
Thing vapors cloud the illumined air
And parting day-light lingers there.
But ah, no longer thou art near
This varied loveliness to see,
And I, though fondly lingering here
To-night can only think on thee--
The flowers they gently hand caressed
Still lie unwithered on my breast,
And still thy footsteps print the short
Where thou and I may rove no more.
Again I hear the murmuring fall
Of water from some distant dell,
The beetle's hum, the cricket's call,
And, far away, that evening bell--
Again, again those sounds I hear,
But oh, how desolate and drear
They seem to night--how like a knell
The music of that evening bell.
Again the new moon in the west,
Scarce seen upon yon golden sky,
Hangs o'er the mountain's purple crest
With one pale planet trembling night,
And beautiful her pearly light
As when we blessed its beams last night,
But thou art on the far blue see,
And I can only think on thee.