The mellow year is hasting to its close;
The little birds have almost sung their last,
Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast -
That shrill- piped harbinger of early snows;
The patient beauty of the scentless rose,
Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glasses,
Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past,
And makes a little summer where it grows.
In the chill sun beam of the faint brief day
The dusky waters shudder as they shine;
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define;
And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array,
Wrap their old limbs with somber ivy twine.
Hartley Coleridge
