With a fine piping noise,
As if some younger singing motes cried out,
As do mischievous boys,
Startling their playmates with a pained voice,
Or sudden thrilling shout,
Followed by laughter, full of little joys.
Perchance a lurking breeze
Springs, just awakened to its wayward play,
Tossing the sober trees
Into a frolic maze of ecstacies,
And snatching at the gay
Banners of Autumn, strews them where it please.
The sunset colors glow
A second time in flame from out wood,
As bright and warm as though
The vanished clouds had fallen, and lodged below
Among the treetops, hued
With all the colors of heaven's signal-bow.
The fitful breezes die
Into a gentle whisper, and then sleep;
And sweetly, mournfully,
Starting to sight, in the transparent sky,
Lone in the upper deep,
Sad Hesper pours its beams upon the eye;
And for one little hour,
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