Classic Poem

The Autumn 's done; they have the golden corn in,
Clover and fern from either slope are gone,
The peaks high up in the crystalline morning
Glister of gray and roan.

These pitiless two hours of midday hotter
Than from the——of a furnace, flare
The very shadows like a sunken water,
Leaving but sunlight there,

Till eve: and in the valley that expires
A quick chill wind seizes the duskiness,
While, on the summits lighting, sunset fires
Kindle in Sorapis.

One of these days I know, just as they sadden
Spangling awhile the rose and yellow sky,
You'll go away and watch the country gladden
Softly to Italy.

There, take this ring of gold—and when your fancy
Glides by to songs under the autumn moon
Where like unfurling silks of necromancy
Lies out the white lagoon,

Throw it away, that it be mine no longer.
Italian, give it back to Italy,
I will not have thy Past about me stronger
Than what is yet to be.

Nay, hurry home to sleep. The ferns are rigid
With hoar, and dark and denser hangs the mist;
It freezes and the stars quaver in frigid
Heaven of amethyst.

Down thro' San Vito and the land Cadore,
To which—when closed the pestered city gate—
The dying Titian strained, homeward from glory,
Home from eternal fate;

Down where the outlines have a softer meaning—
Willow and clematis, the fruit and grain;
And the last mountain height sinks greening
Into the golden plain,—

To Venice. There the October days purpureal
Fall down to earth from Heaven wearily,—
And wounded at the last, insatiate Uriel
Dies on the flaming sea.—

One of these days you'll leave me in the mountains,
For I go Northward, not to see this year
Gold Italy and her wind-silvered plantains,
But there the sad and sere—

I go elsewhere. . . .