Half tinged with voiceless passion, half
Plaintive with sad imaginings that drift
Like echoes of far-off autumnal bells.
He starts up with a laugh,
Binds up the last gaunt sheaf and turns away;
Out of the dusk an inarticulate call
Rings keen across the solemn Berkshire woods,
And then the answer. Impotent farewells
That eager voices lift
Into the hush of the receding day;
Full soon the silence surges in again,
Peaceful, inevitable, deep as death.

The boy has lingered late in the grey fields,
Knowing the first strange happiness of pain,
And the low voices of October moods.
Now comes the night, the meadow yields
Unto the sky a damp and pungent breath;
The quiet air of the New England town
Seems confident that everyone is home
Safe by his fire.
The frosty stars look down
Near, near above the kind familiar trees
In whose dry branches roam
The gentle spirits of the darkling breeze.
Deep in its caverned heart the forest sings
Of mysteries unknown and vanished lore;
Old wisdom; dead desire;
Dreams of the past, of immemorial springs....
The wind is rising cold from the river: close the door.