It is a busy mountain,—the wind's song
Levels so briskly the oak-tops along,
Which light October frosts color like wine,
That ripens red on warm Madeira's line.
I hear the rustling plumes of these young woods,
Like young cockerels crowing to the solitudes
While o'er the far horizon trails a mist,
A kind of autumn smoke or blaze,—I list,
Again, a lively song the woods do sing,
The smoke-fire drifts about painting a ring
Sublime, the centre of which is the mountain;
It rises like the cloud of some dark fountain
At even-song; the Indian summer's voice,
Bids me in this last tropic day rejoice.
How brown the country is, what want of rain,
But no crops growing, no one will complain.
The Indian summer, wan and waste and tame,
Like the red nation whence it takes its name,
Some relic of the season, a faint heat
Which momently must into Winter fleet,
The dying of the year,—the Indian time,
How well they name it, how it suits the clime.
The race who on this mountain once might stand,
The country's monarchs wide on either hand,
Bold as the July heats, and vigorous
As August tempests, and more glorious
Than splendid summer Moonlights, where are they?
Ah, like this summer, they did fade away
Into the white snows of that winter race,
Who came with iron hands and pallid face,
Nor could the Indian look within his eye;
They turned, their frosts had come, their blight was nigh;
Some praise their stately figure, or their skill,
They straight submitted to the White man's will,
Their only monument, a fading week,
The Indian summer; like the hectic cheek
Of a consumptive girl who ere her time,
In some gay anguish half renews her prime,
Shines in one summer moment, e'er the frost
Crimsons her foliage before all is lost.