Another change subdues them in the Fall, But saddens not, they still show merrier tints, Though sober russet seems to cover all; When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints, Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss, As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints. Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest, Lean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, Glow opposite; the marshes drink their fill And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill. Later, and yet ere Winter wholly shuts, Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, While the firmer ice the eager boy awaits, Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, And until bedtime--plays with his desire, Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;-- Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail, By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, "Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, Giving a pretty emblem of the day When guitar arms in light shall melt away, And states shall move free limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail. And now those waterfalls the ebbing river Twice everyday creates on either side Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, The silvered flats gleam frostily below, Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. But, crowned in turn by vying seasons three, Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; This glory seems to rest immovably,-- The others were too fleet and vanishing; When the hid tide is at its highest flow, O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, As pale as formal candles lit by day; Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, White crests as of some just enchanted sea, Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway.