  Farewell, thou beautiful summer, Gliding swift from our land away; Thy viewless winds have a murmur And cadence of sadness to-day. Adieu to thy laughing sunlight, And thy skies so supremely blue; The sigh of the breeze at twilight, And peaceful glades starlit in dew. Farewell, thy streams softly purling Like silver threads over the lea; Great rivers rolling onward, Right grandly toward the sea. Shadows steal out from the woodlands, Lengthening day by day; The sun sinks low in southern skies As the summer-time drifts away. The fairest and tiniest flowers Have closed their delicate leaves, And the harvesters have garnered The last of their golden sheaves. By hillside, bright bower and plain, The reddened brown leaves are sifting Fast earthward in red, red rain. And burns the vast flaming sunset In crimson and tawny-barred gold; Athwart the advancing night-time The star-gemmed skies unfold. Sadly, aye, sad and regretful, I list to the wild, glad strain Of the song-birds flying southward, Filling my heart with pain. And the winds are melancholy That tread o’er the withering lea; And mysterious tones in unison Come up from the restless sea; And my yearning thoughts are tender, And fair hopes that ended in pain Rise with the summer’s departure, Like pale ghosts, to haunt us again. And I sigh for summers olden, For a time that cometh no more. The years of the past were golden: On memory’s dreamland shore I buried them in deep silence; And I shed there some burning tears, And ever the days creep slowly Into wearily fading years. There’s a clime of fadeless sunshine Where the chill and blight ne’er come, And perpetual bloom of summer Is surrounding a great white throne. When life and its cares are all done, If we, though sinful and outcast, May enter that beautiful home. |
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