First Frost

O solemn rains, and quietude of gloom-

Slate-colored air through which the maples bloom-

The cold sends on in you his points of steel ;

These painted fires will feed a fire more real.

Death long ago instructed me with grief,

But I have trusted summer leaf by leaf

That dying, pledges every year anew

Devotion to the ways in which it grew:

Those leaves like minds, that used to verdure tossed,

When in the night they have a taste of frost

Are afterwards in quiet purple stoled,

Or sepia with undersides of gold,

Their rich bouquets of garnet and of rose

Ripened in full foreknowledge of the snows.