After Autumn Rain

The hillside smokes
With trailing mist around the rosy oaks;

While sunset builds
A gorgeous Asia in the west she gilds.

Auroral streaks
Sword through the heavens' Himalayan peaks:

In which, behold,
Burn mines of Indian ruby and of gold.

A moment —and
A shadow stalks between it and the land.

A mist, a breath,
A premonition, with the face of death,

Turning to frost
The air it breathes, like some invisible ghost.

Then, wild of hair,
Demons seem streaming to their fiery lair:

A chasm, the same
That splits the clouds' face with a leer of flame.

The wind comes up
And fills the hollow land as wine a cup.

Around and round
It skips the dead leaves o'er the forest's ground.

A myriad fays
And imps seem dancing down the withered ways.

And far and near
It makes of every bush a whisperer;

Telling dark tales
Of things that happened in the ghostly vales:

Of things the fox
Barks at and sees among the haunted rocks:

At which the owl
Hoots, and the wolf-hound cringes with a growl.

Now on the road
It walks like feet too weary for their load.

Shuffling the leaves,
With stormy sighs, onward it plods and heaves;

Till in the hills
Among the red death there itself it kills.

And with its death
Earth, so its seems, draws in a mighty breath.

And, —like a clown
Who wanders lost upon a haunted down,

Turns towards the east,
Fearful of coming goblin or of beast,

And sees a light, —
The jack-o'-lantern moon, —glow into sight..