Farewell to lovely Autumn!
Farewell to fruits and flowers!
Farewell to golden sunsets!
Farewell to rosy bowers!
No more the rustic dances
Beneath the spreading tree;
No more the young lamb prances
Round meadows, wild and free. No more the reaper circles
The life-sustaining wheat;
No more the soft wind whispers
In accents low and sweet;
Morning till late lies sleeping,
As loath to quiet her bed,
The clouds with sorrow weeping,
As mourning she is dead! Rising with haste, the rivers
Quicken their sluggish course,
Rolling their swelling waters
With impetuous force;
Ocean, with arms uplifted,
Fires loud his thund'ring guns,
With love paternal gifted
To welcome home his sons. The woods, no longer vocal,
A silent gloom invest,
And in their robes of beauty,
Are now no longer dressed.
The year's fair prime is ended,
Its pulse beats low and cold;
Its charms, so lately splendid,
Are withered, changed and old! Farewell then, lovely Autumn!
We may not meet again!
For winter must rule o'er us,
And spring and summer reign.
The snows of time are on me,
Their silent footfalls tell
My soul to look beyond me
Where there is no farewell!