Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

SELECTED.
THE YELLOW LEAF

Round flew the bowl, the laugh rose high
When summer's richest canopy,
The bedded boughs of emerald dye,
Was all our shade
So soft the air. so gay the plain,
Though August's moon was in her wane,
We said that Summer's joyous reign
Would never cease.
High rose the laugh,the transports swell,
When, sudden! potent as a spell!
Detach'd by no rude zephyr, fell
One yellow leaf!
The mirth was hushed, the songster's lay
Broke short, and back in solemn gaze,
Hung on the leaf, nor dared to raise
A timorous lay.
Each fear'd upon his neighbor's face
His own sad thoughts pourtray'd to trace,
As the pale emblem spoke the race
Of Summer run.
It seem'd some fairy from the skies
Had seen our idle transports rise,
And, to unmask life's treacheries.
The warner sent,
To tell us, that the scene might glow,
But soon should fade in cheerless snow ;
To tell us, that our life might know
An Autumn too :
That joys but coming sorrows speak,
As calms precede the tempest bleak :
That death its surest victim's cheek
Blithe roses paint.
Yes. in that hour, and on that day,
Reflection stole my smiles away,
And, like him, weeping to survey
His myriad lands.
Methought ere many years go round,
Full many of us, who do this ground
Now gaily travel, will be found
To meet again.
The young before the old may go,
And he who hears this measure flow
May fall perchance the first, to show
This moral true.