Summer's lovely meadows green,
Sylvan shades and fairy bowers,
Dewy dawns and eves serene,
Balmy air and pretty flowers, --
All these sweets will soon be gone,
Fading, dying one by one. Autumn breathes a colder breath,
Warning us of winter's chill--
Nature passes on to death,
Beautiful in dying still, --
Cheeks aglowing in decay,
Blushing as they fade away. Could there be a grander sight,
Than our forests' rainbow tints,
Glancing, changing in the light,
Fairer far than colour'd prints, --
Surely death cannot be grief,
To that rosy maple leaf. Emblem of my fleeting days,
Verdant, change, frail and brief, --
O! That as my strength decays,
I may show the maple leaf--
Fair in every passing stage,
Still more beautiful in age.
- S. Moore