All over the earth like a mantle,
Golden, and green, and grey,
Crimson, and scarlet, and yellow,
The Autumn foliage lay;--
The sun of the Indian Summer
Laughed at the bare old trees
As they shook their leafless branches
In the soft October breeze.
Gorgeous was every hill-side,
And gorgeous every nook,
And the dry, old log was gorgeous,
Spanning the little brook;
Its holiday robes, the forest
Had suddenly cast to earth,
And, as yet, seemed scarce to miss, them,
In its plenitude of mirth.
I walked where the leaves the softest,
The brightest, and goldenest lay,
And I thought of a forest hill-side,
And an Indian Summer day,--
Of an eager, little child-face
O'er the fallen leaves that bent,
As she gathered her cup of beech nuts,
With innocent content.
I thought of the small, brown fingers
Gleaning them one by one,
With the partridge drumming near her
In the forest bare and dun,
And the jet-black squirrel, winking
His saucy, jealous eye
At those tiny, pilfering fingers,
From his sly nook up on high
Ah, barefooted little maiden
With thy bonnetless, sun-burnt brow,
Thou glean'st no more on the hill-side--
Where art thou gleaning now?
I knew by the lifted glances
Of thy dark, imperious eye,
That the tall trees bending o'er thee
Would not shelter thee by and by.
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