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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  A Bit of Autumn Color

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Southern States: Blue Ridge, Va.

A Bit of Autumn Color

By Margaret Junkin Preston (1820–1897)

CENTRED upon a sloping crest, I gazed

As one enchanted. The horizon’s ring

Of billowy mountains flushed with sunsetting,

Islanded me about, and held me mazed,

With beauty saturate. Never color blazed

On any mortal palette that could fling

Such golden glamour over everything,

As flashed from Autumn’s prism, till all was hazed

With opal, amber, emerald, amethyst,

That shimmered, mingled, dusked to steely blue.

Raptured, I mused: “Salvator never drew

A brush so loaded: Turner’s genius missed

Such culmination: yet we count them true

Masters. Behold what God’s one touch can do!”