To silent orders.

The glossy chestnuts swell and burst
Their prickly houses
Agog at news which reached them first
In sap's carouses.

The long noons turn the ribstons red,
The pippins yellow;
The wild duck from his reedy bed
Summons his fellow.

The robins keep the underbrush
Songless and wary,
As though they feared some frostier hush
Might bid them tarry;

Perhaps in the great North they heard
Of silence falling
Upon the world without a word,
White and appalling.

The ash-tree and the lady-fern,
In russet frondage,
Proclaim 'tis time for our return
To vagabondage.

All summer idle have we kept;
But on a morning,
Where the blue hazy mountains slept,