Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By The Autumnal FlowerJohn Shaw (17781809)
A
Has told approaching Winter nigh,
When dark November’s gloom has frown’d
And sadden’d all the sickly sky;
Upon this bleak ascent to bloom?
Thou com’st amid the dying year
To waste, untimely, thy perfume.
When first the green bud clothed the plain,
Or sought the breezy valley’s side
When Summer held his golden reign.
Had waked thee with soft magic spells,
And many a dewy eve had seen
Thee close, unhurt, thy tender bells.
To chase each nipping frost away,
And murmuring wild bees linger’d near
Thy odors, all the joyful day.
And genial Spring, long since, has flown;
The wild bees murmur here no more,
And every tepid gale is gone.
The blasts that lead the tempest blow;
And lo! the frighten’d billows swell,
And whiten all the shore below.
Who o’er these rocky summits strays,
While eve with chilling damps returns
And dims the sun’s departing rays.
Shall kindle up the tardy day,
Thy life, thy fragrance shall be o’er,
Thy simple beauties die away.
Nor evening smile on thy repose;
For dark and cold the coming North
Bids all thy shrinking flow’rets close.
In vain the radiant step of Spring
Awakes the year e’er Autumn close;
No vernal joys now spread the wing:—
No—give me to my native snows!
Thou rocky, sea-girt isle, farewell!
Where hostile strangers strive for power,
And fear and superstition dwell.
Tomorrow bears me o’er the foam;
And some returning morn shall show
A land of freedom and a home.
He turn’d, and downward bent his way;
And sought, while darker grew the night,
The ship at anchor in the bay.
And many a long, long night be o’er,
Ere morn, returning, smile to see
The wanderer on his native shore.