Classic Poem

O why so soon, most princely Golden-rod,
So soon,—why yesterday all summer,
Now, thy nodding plumes convert our hopes
To Autumn, and endow the verdured lanes
With thy most royal gold? Yet like all wealth,
Thou hast a cold and hidden sorrow in thee,
As to say, Behold in me a flattery!
Think me like an ebbing of the tide,
When purer splendors o'er the curling wave
Seem down its long declivity, to glide.
Ye too, meek Asters, violets' late friends,
Pale tranquil constellations of the fall,
That mark a decadence, why do ye strew
Your fair amenities along the paths
Of these continuous woodlands, come so soon?
Ere half the flush of summer's rosy hours
Had lit the faces of the August hills,
Decked the broad meadows with their base of grass,
Forced Indian corn to flint, or ere the brood
Of the first April birds put on their dress.
Not mournful; no, the world, whate'er its sorrows be,
Will not disclose them. Silent and serene
The plastic soul emancipates her kind,
And leaves the generations to their fate,
Uncompromised by tears. She will not weep,—
She needs no grief for man, our mother Nature!
Is not rude or vexed, or rough or careless,
Out of temper never, still as sweet, though winds
Of Winter brush her leaves away, and life
To human creatures, breathes like frost.
Dear friend!
Learn from the joy of Nature, so to be
Not only quite resigned to thy worst fears,
But like herself superior to them all.
Not only superficial in thy smiles,
For down the inmost fibre of thy heart
Let goodness run, and fix in that
The ever lapsing tides, that lesser thoughts
Deprive of half their patience. Be throughout,
Warm as the inmost life that fills the world,
And in demeanor show thy safe content,
Annihilating change.
So Vernon lived,
Considerate to his kind! His love bestowed
Was not a thing of fractions, half-way done,
But with a mellow goodness like the sun,
He shone o'er mortal hearts, and brought their buds
To blossoms, thence to fruits and seed.
Forbearing too much counsel, yet with blows
In pleasing reason urged, he took their thoughts
As with a mild surprise, and they were good,
Even though they knew not whence it came,
Or once suspected that from Vernon's heart,
That warm o'er-circling heart, their impulse flowed.