INDIAN SUMMER


A silken curtain veils the skies,
And half conceals from pensive eyes
The bronzing tokens of the fall;
A calmness broods upon the hills,
And summer's parting dream distils
A charm of silence over all.

The stacks of corn, in brown array,
Stand waiting through the tranquil day,
Like tattered wigwams on the plain;
The tribes that find a shelter there
Are phantom peoples, forms of air,
And ghosts of vanished joy and pain.

At evening when the crimson crest
Of sunset passes down the West,
I hear the whispering host returning;
On far-off fields, by elm and oak,
I see the lights, I smell the smoke,--
The Camp-fires of the Past are burning.

_Tertius and Henry van Dyke._

November, 1903.