NOVEMBER.


 

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 glassed,

Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past, 

And makes a little summer where it grows. 

In the chill sunbeam 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.