Related quotes: Round Autumn's mouldering urn Loud...

Autumnal Nightfall

Round Autumn's mouldering urn
Loud mourns the chill and cheerless gale,
When nightfall shades the quiet vale
And stars in beauty burn.

'Tis the year's eventide.
The wind, like one that sighs in pain
O?er joys that ne'er will bloom again
Mourns on the far hillside.

And yet my pensive eye
Rests on the faint blue mountain long;
And for the fairy-land of song,
That lies beyond, I sigh.

The moon unveils her brow;
In the mid-sky her urn glows bright,
And in her sad and mellowing light
The valley sleeps below.

Upon the hazel gray
The lyre of Autumn hangs unstrung
And o?er its tremulous chords are flung
The fringes of decay.

I stand deep musing here,
Beneath the dark and motionless beech,
Whilst wandering winds of nightfall reach
My melancholy ear.

The air breathes chill and free:
A spirit in soft music calls
From Autumn's gray and moss-grown halls,
And round her withered tree.

The hoar and mantled oak,
With moss and twisted ivy brown,
Bends in its lifeless beauty down
Where weeds the fountain choke.

That fountain's hollow voice
Echoes the sound of precious things;
Of early feeling's tuneful springs
Choked with our blighted joys.

Leaves, that the night-wind bears
To earth's cold bosom with a sign,
Are types of our mortality,
And of our fading years.

The tree that shades the plain,
Wasting and hoar as time decays,
Spring shall renew with cheerful days,--
But not my joys again.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Italian Scenery

Night rests in beauty on Mont Alto.
Beneath its shade the beauteous Arno sleeps
In vallombrosa's bosom, and dark trees
Bend with a calm and quiet shadow down
Upon the beauty of that silent river.

Still in the west a melancholy smile
Mantles the lips of day, and twilight pale
Moves like a spectre in the dusky sky,
While eve's sweet star on the fast-fading year
Smiles calmly. Music steals at intervals
Across the water, with a tremulous swell,
From out the upland dingle of tall firs;
And a faint footfall sounds, where, dim and dark,
Hangs the gray willow from the river's brink,
O'ershadowing its current. Slowly there
The lover's gondola drops down the stream,
Silent, save when its dipping oar is heard,
Or in its eddy sighs the rippling wave.
Mouldering and moss-grown through the lapse of years,
In motionless beauty stands the giant oak;
Whilst those that saw its green and flourishing youth
Are gone and are forgotten. Soft the fount,
Whose secret springs the star-light pale discloses,
Gushes in hollow music; and beyond
The broader river sweeps its silent way,
Mingling a silver current with that sea,
Whose waters have no tides, coming nor going.
On noiseless wing along that fair blue sea
The halcyon flits; and where the wearied storm
Left a loud moaning, all is peace again.

A calm is on the deep. The winds that came
O'er the dark sea-surge with a tremulous breathing,
And mourned on the dark cliff where weeds grew rank,
And to the autumnal death-dirge the deep sea
Heaved its long billows, with a cheerless song
Have passed away to the cold earth again,
Like a wayfaring mourner. Silently
Up from the calm sea's dim and distant verge,
Full and unveiled, the moon's broad disk emerges.
On Tivoli, and where the fairy hues
Of autumn glow upon Abruzzi's woods,
The silver light is spreading. Far above,
Encompassed with their thin, cold atmosphere,
The Apennines uplift their snowy brows,
Glowing with colder beauty, where unheard
The eagle screams in the fathomless, ether,
And stays his wearied wing. Here let us pause.
The spirit of these solitudes -- the soul
That dwells within these steep and difficult places--
Spearks a mysterious language to mine own,
And brings unutterable musings. Earth
Sleeps in the shades of nightfall, and the sea
Spreads like a thin blue haze beneath my feet;
Whilst the gray columns and the mouldering tombs
Of the Imperial City, hidden deep
Beneath the mantle of their shadows, rest.

My spirit looks on earth. A heavnly voice
Comes silently: 'Dreamer, is earth thy dwelling?
Lo! Nursed within that fair and fruitful bosom,
Which has sustained thy being, and within
The colder breast of Ocean, lie the germs
Of thine own dissolution! E'en the air,
That fans the clear blue sky, and gives thee strength,
Up from the sullen lake of mouldering reeds,
And the wide waste of forest, where the osier
Thrives in the damp and motionless atmosphere,
Shall bring the dire and wasting pestilence,
And blight they cheek. Dram thou of higher things:
This world is not thy home!' And yet my eye
Rests upon earth again. How beautiful,
Where wild Velino heaves its sullen aves
Down the high cliff of gray and shapeless granite,
Hung on the curling mist, the moonlight bow
Arches the perilous river! A soft light
Silvers the Albanian mountains, and the haze
That rests upon their summits mellows down
The austerer features of their beauty. Faint
And dim-discovered glow, the Sabine hills;
And, listening to the sea's monotonous shell,
High on the cliffs of Terracina stands
The castle of the royal Goth* in ruins.

But night is in her wane: day's early flush
Glows like a hectic on her fading cheek,
Wasting its beauty. And the opening dawn
With cheerful luster lights the royal city,
Where, with its proud tiara of dark towers,
It sleeps upon its own romantic bay.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Thanksgiving

When first in ancient time, from Jubal's tongue
The tuneful anthem filled the morning air,
To sacred hymnings and elysian song
His music-breathing sehll the minstrel woke.
Devotion breathed aloud from every chord:
The voice of praise was heard in every tone,
And prayer and thanks to Him, the Eternal One,
To Him, that with bright inspiration touched
The high and gifted lyre of heavenly song,
And warmed the soul with new vitality.
A stirring energy through Nature breathed:
The voice of adoration from her broke,
Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard
Long in the sullen waterfall, what time
Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth
Its bloom or blighting; when the summer smiled;
Or winter o'er the year's sepulcher mourned.
The Deity was there; a nameless spirit
Moved in the breasts of men to do him homage;
And when the morning smiled, or evening pale
Hung weeping o'er the melancholy urn,
They came beneath the broad, o'erarching trees,
And in their tremulous shadow worshipped oft,
Where pale the vine clung round their simple altars,
And gray moss mantling hung. Above was heard
The melody of winds, breathed out as the green trees
Bowed to their quivering touch in living beauty;
And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,
The bright and widely wandering rivulet
Struggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots
That choked its reedy fountain, and dark rocks
Worn smooth by the constant current. Even there
The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice
Where reeds grew rank on the rushy-fringed brink,
And the green sedge bent to the wandering wind,
Sang with a cheerful song of sweet tranquillity.
Men felt the heavenly influence; and it stole
Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace:
And even the air they breathed, the light they saw,
Became religion; for the ethereal spirit
That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,
And mellows everything to beauty, moved
With cheering energy within their breasts
And made all holy there, for all was love.
The morning stars, that sweetly sang together;
The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky:
Dayspring and eventide; and all the fair
And beautiful forms of nature, had a voice
Of eloquent worship. Ocean, with its tides
Selling and deep, where low the infant storm
Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat
The pulses of the sea, sent forth a voice
Of awful adoration to the spirit
That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.
And when the bow of evening arched the east,
Or, in the moonlight pale, the curling wave
Kissed with a sweet embrace the sea-worn beach,
And soft the song of winds came o'er the waters,
The mingled melody of wind and wave
Touched like a heavenly anthem on the ear;
For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.
And have our hearts grown cold? Are there on earth
No pure reflections caught from heavnly light?
Have our mute lips no hymn, our souls no song?
Let him thatin the summer-day of youth
Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,
And him that in the nightfall of his years
Lies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace
His dim, pale eyes on life's short wayfaring,
Praise Him that rules the destiny of man.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Falling of Autumn

Arising in the morning's dawning,
amid the damp and dewy air,
a chill pervades the earth with longing ~
while autumn passes unaware.

A frosty breath blown by the window,
sighed with regret upon the pane,
awaits to face the long December ~
while autumn sings a short refrain.

The tree now bends its boughs so lonely.
Its leaf has flown to pasture ground,
bereft upon a dream of emerald ~
while autumn glows with eyes of brown.

Though winter sleep is but a whisper,
a'whispering to one golden day,
it tiptoes softly in white footsteps ~
while autumn flees in bright array.

Drowsy 'neath a fading sunset,
cloaked within its shade of gray,
a chill returns to sleep beside me ~
while autumn falls beneath the day.

poem by Hazelmarie Elliott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Spirit of Poetry, The

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.

And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Earlier Poems : The Spirit Of Poetry

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Only On This Day...

For: J.L.

It was a cool, July, and it was dusk.
The gentle winds that blew,
brushed the Autumn of your hair.

And a mist, as like in Autumn, touch
your face, as I stood still.

I could not help but wonder, as in Autumn,
are the bees yet in their hive? Snuggled
closely, in their Autumn winter bed.?

An Autumn sun, hid behind the clouds above.
It knew not of this July, only of Autumn, in the air.
It knew of flowers drooping, their brightness,
now fading and curled. It knew of falling leaves,
and colors still so bright. A lone tree against a colored
sky, seemed naked in this July. With all of
this, and some to go, it must be Autumn...Autumn...
Autumn, for this I know.

What of the woman, with the hair of Autumn?
Her eyes of Autumn color and colored clothes
the same. It can not be July for
Autumn is abound.

Autumns every where. Circling sparrows in sky
above, swoop down, in hunt, for the final seeds
of Autumn. How could this be July,
or has the sparrows lost their way?

Surely, this is Autumn, for the chill is in they air.
And, isn't that an Autumn grass, below that
old oak tree? As the gentle Autumn winds,
carry silence for the day.

Now the mist of Autumn, are falling drops of rain.
No, not a shower in July, but an Autumn day,
now cast in gloom, against a steel gray sky.

Autumn, shall never be the same, since
that Autumn day in mid July.

poem by Joe Fazio
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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New York... Not In Autum