Autumn Dews

Throw open the shutters, it's seven o'clock!
And impertinent crows take their flight at the shock;
Then dropping their breakfast, they scoff as they pass
O'er the blanket of dew that lies white on the grass.

The mists from the shoulders of hillsides are slipping;
The low Autumn sun burns the dew-drops alive;
And barberry-bushes with rubies are dripping,
And gardners are heaping dead leaves by the drive.

O haste to the forest!—the forest whose fingers
Are clasping dank, green, little jewels of lawn:
Perhaps in some shadowy clearing still lingers
The track of the hare and the flame of the dawn.