Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
A November Nocturne
By Margaret Junkin Preston (18201897)T
Across yon maple-crested hill;
And on my ear
Falls, tingling clear,
A strange, mysterious, woodland thrill.
Untouched with yet a tinct of brown,
Reluctant, slow,
As loath to go,
The loosened leaves come wavering down.
In its decadence doomed to share
The fate of all,
But in its fall
Flings something sob-like on the air.
Dying afar in twilight dell,
Hath any heard
Whose echoes stirred
A tenderer pathos of farewell.
Goes quivering through each sapless vein;
And there are moans
Whose undertones
Are sad as autumn-midnight rain.
No lightest-clinging leaf can die,—
Let him who saith
Decay and death
Need bring no heart-break, tell me why.
I read “Resurgam” everywhere;
So easy said
Above the dead,—
So weak to anodyne despair!