Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Loves Autumn
By Paul Hamilton Hayne (18301886)I
Of those white locks which like a milky way
Streak the dusk midnight of thy raven hair;
Of those half-saddened, thoughtful eyes of thine,
Whence Love looks forth, touched by the shadow of care;
The lips less dewy-red than when the South,
The young South wind of passion, sighed o’er them;
On thy wan cheeks, soft as September’s rose
Blushing but faintly on its faltering stem;
Which, breathed divinely from thy patient face,
Tells of love’s watchful anguish, merged in rest;
O friend supreme! whose constant, stainless heart
Doth house, unknowing, many an angel guest.
While the flesh fails, strong love grows more and more
Divinely beautiful with perished years.
Of life’s decay, we will not, Sweet! repine,
Nor greet its mellowing close with thankless tears.
But through love’s autumn mist I view the land,
The land of deathless summers yet to be;
In a great flood of rare transfiguring light,
But there as here, thou smilest, Love! on me!