Classic Poem

As I sit at my window bay
Just o'er a Gap's abyss,
A sound mysterious comes my way—
It sounds so like a kiss!
Who is it, kissing fierce and fast
Within my library?—
As I kissed her I caught at last
When I was young as she?

No, 'tis not there, though kisses were—
They come up from the woods;
Are angels kissing in the air,
Or mountain girls, in hoods?
With smacks like those, old satyrs wooed
Cold nymphs a stream conceives:
(Such kisses leave babes in the wood
Among the trampled leaves.)

It sounds like fright and appetite,
Complaint and jubilee,
Like sleighbells coming in the night,
And boiling punch, or tea.
So ends this last of mysteries
As I my door unlock:
It is the blackbirds in my trees,
The first October flock!

I start them from their chilly roost,—
They fly like bolts from bows;
Like inky authors, bedlam-loosed,
Who murmur and compose.
Still crackles all the morn like frost,
That sighing music is;
It says that summer's something lost,
And life a farewell kiss.

The earth shall some day cool and we—
We know not what or for—
Will flock together dismally
Along the Equatór.
But life will dye the snowflake red,
As long as it can float,
And from the frozen sun o'erhead
Will kiss the blackbird's note!