  Crimson-and-gold, October’s boughs proclaim The approaching Passion of the waning year; By sacramental signs, for aye the same, Pathetic portents show the end is near. The landscape lessens in the shimmering haze; The songless silence chants the season’s grief;— Too soon shall follow, with the darkening days, The fading field-flower and the falling leaf. No more allures the lovely glade or glen; A nameless sorrow haunts the lonely shore; The frosts have fallen on the hearts of men; The little children seek the woods no more. For Nature holds us surely as her own, In sleet and snow, or under skies of blue; From birth to death we share her mirth or moan,— Forever to our faithful mother true. The comfort Heaven to wood and wold supplies,— A hope that doth the season’s sadness heal And binds us closer still, in tenderest ties. A kindred impulse stirs our common dust To look beyond the winter’s dearth and dole, And find in God, our Life, our Strength, our Trust, The everlasting summer of the soul.
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