Classic Poem

The Autumn gales are blowing
And wrecks bestrew the shore;
The angry ocean rages
With loud and wild uproar.
Furious billows leeward
The doomèd vessels bore;
Their prey the foaming breakers
To fragments madly tore.

The Autumn winds are singing
The death-song of the leaves;
Shrill piping, as they winnow
The shocks of golden sheaves.
Soft singing to the reaper,
Who loves to hear the song,
And bares his dewy forehead,
As they singing skim along.

The Autumn breeze is hushing
To sleep the fading flowers;
Breathing on the falling leaves
And through the rifled bowers;
Murmuring through the woodlands,
And sighing in the pines;
Light rippling on the streamlet
In broken, wavy lines.

On a couch of fallen leaves—
The golden and the brown—
While the breezes fan my brow,
There I would lay me down
Alone with God and nature,
'Midst emblems of decay;
'Neath the calm Autumnal sky
I'd breathe my life away.