John G. C. Brainard (1796–1828)

WHAT is there saddening in the Autumn leaves?

Have they that “green and yellow melancholy”

That the sweet poet spake of?—Had he seen

Our variegated woods, when first the frost

Turns into beauty all October’s charms—

When the dread fever quits us—when the storms

Of the wild Equinox, with all its wet,

Has left the land, as the first deluge left it,

With a bright bow of many colors hung

Upon the forest tops—he had not sigh’d.

The moon stays longest for the Hunter now:

The trees cast down their fruitage, and the blithe

And busy squirrel hoards his winter store:

While man enjoys the breeze that sweeps along

The bright blue sky above him, and that bends

Magnificently all the forest’s pride,

Or whispers through the evergreens, and asks,

“What is there saddening in the Autumn leaves?”