Herald Of The Times

The foliage on the autumn hills,
With wrinkled age, is withering fast.
And fills the unrefreshing rills
Obedient to the west wind's blast:
No requiem notes the song bird swells
O'er the dead summer's twilight spells.
That season's beams which sank away,
Not like the winter's sickly sun,
But richly melting ray by ray
In day and twilight seemed but one-
They're gone with summer's frolic breath,
And darkness comes-the child of death.
And all the love inspiring flowers,
Like Beauty's eyes, illuminating
With smiles, this weary world of ours,
Have died beneath the winter's wing
All save that rose, so lone and mild-
The buried summer's orphan child.
Sweet flower! in every leaf of thine
A page of human life I see;
Thou liv'st to mourn that day's decline
When all thy kindred bloomed like thee-
Wept with thy tears or by thy side
Laugh'd in the summer's morning pride.
How many emblems dost thou show
Of blighted hope and fickle dream-
A dying bliss-a living woe
Waiting time's advancing stream,
Unwasted by eternal toil,
Shall add thy beauty to his spoil.
It is a pain, when winter frowns
Upon our fortunes to survive-
And welcome in the death which drowns
The pangs that we endure alive-
And oh! 'tis bliss to know
That death must come-for weal or woe!