Now Autumn closes on the fading year, The chill wind moaneth through the woodlands sere; At morn the mists lie mournful on the hill,-- The hum of summer's populace is still! Hush'd the rife herbage, mute the choral tree, The blithe cicala, and the murmuring bee; The plashing reed, the furrow on the glass Of the calm wave, as by the bank you pass Scaring the lazy trout,--delight no more; The god of fields is dead--Pan's lusty reign is o'er! Solemn and earnest--yet to holier eyes Not void of glory, arch the sober'd skies Above the serious earth!--The changes wrought Type our own change from passion into thought. What though our path at every step is strewn With leaves that shadow'd in the summer noon; Through the clear space more vigorous comes the air, And the star pierces where the branch is bare. What though the birds desert the chiller light; To brighter climes the wiser speed their flight. So happy Souls at will expand the wing, And, trusting Heaven, re-settle into Spring. An old man sat beneath the yellowing beech, Vow'd to the Cross, and wise the Word to teach. A patriarch priest, from earth's worst tempters pure, Gold and Ambition!--sainted and obscure! Before his knee (the Gospel in his hands, And sunshine at his heart), a youthful listener stands! The old man spoke of Christ--of Him who bore } Our form, our woes;--that man might evermore } In succouring woe-worn man, the God, made Man, adore! } "My child," he said, "in the far-heathen days, Hope was a dream, Belief an endless maze; The wise perplex'd, yet still with glimpse sublime Of ports dim-looming o'er the seas of Time Guess'd HIM unworshipp'd yet--the Power above Or Dorian Phoebus, or Pelasgic Jove! Guess'd the far realm, not won by Charon's oar Not the pale joys the brave who gain abhor; No cold Elysium where the very Blest Envy the living and deplore the rest;[W] Where ev'n the spirit, as the form, a ghost, Dreams back life's conflicts on the shadowy coast, Hears but the clashing steel, the armed train, And waves the airy spear, and murders hosts again! More just the prescience of the eternal goal, Which gleam'd 'mid Cyprian shades, on Zeno's soul, Or shone to Plato in the lonely cave; God in all space, and life in every grave! Wise lore and high,--but for the _few_ conceived; By schools discuss'd, but not by crowds believed. The angel-ladder touch'd the heavenly steep, But at its foot the patriarchs did but sleep; They did not preach to nations 'Lo your God;' No thousands follow'd where their footsteps trod; Not to the fisherman they said 'Arise!' Not to the lowly they reveal'd the skies;-- Aloof and lone their shining course they ran Like stars too high to gild the world of man:[X] Then, not for schools--but for the human kind-- The uncultured reason, the unletter'd mind;