Where waving woods and waters wild, do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them — the summer flowers depart —Sit still — as all transform’d to stone, except your musing heart.
How there you sat in summer-time, may yet be in your mind;And how you heard the green woods sing, beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around, you would its blast recall;For every breath that stirs the trees, doth cause a leaf to fall.
Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth, that flesh and dust impart:We cannot bear its visitings, when change is on the heart.
Hear not the wind — view not the woods; look out o’er vale and hill —In spring, the sky encircled them — the sky is round them still.
Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold — come change — and human fate!Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound, can ne’er be desolate.
With thanks and apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but I have to respectfully disagree. I will count down the days until spring. Until then, I might be a tad crabby.
