The Ladies' Tea Guild

Thursday, October 27, 2011

A new post (finally!): "Autumn Days" -- a poem from 1855.

Image: Nikolay Dimitrov.
www.eCobo-com

AUTUMN DAYS.  BY LOTTIE LINWOOD.

‘Tis Autumn time! the summer flowers
Have faded ‘neath its golden feet;
The birds have left their shady bowers,
And winds chime mournfully and sweet;
The maple boughs, whose folded leaves
Have whispered through the summer days
Like bright-winged birds, around the eaves
Are flitting in the sun’s pale rays;
I hear their rustling low and sweet,
As if an angel floated o’er;
They seem to me like friends I meet,
And love, then part forever more.

The dreamy lull of limpid streams;
The azure haze that floats above,
Enshroud earth as mysterious dreams,
O’er all our spirits softly move.
Spirit of dreams! oh, I would bless
Thy soft luxurious charms for aye,
And fold thee in my soul’s caress,
Now and forever till I die!
Oh, chide me not! the low wind rhymes,
Full many a plaintive trembling lay,
And I could listen to her hymns,
Till I had breathed my life away.
-- published in the October 1855 issue of Godey's Lady's Book

3 comments:

Bernideen said...

Oh how lovely. What a beautiful poem. I have been playing a new CD "Come Ye Thankful" which is Thanksgiving hymns and enjoying the leaves falling. We also got 8 inches of snow to go with that!

Victorian Garden Tea Room said...

This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing this!

South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild said...

Bernideen, your CD sounds really nice. I don't really have any Thanksgiving hymns on CD or cassette tape (yes, I still have those!) so I'll have to look for that one. And 8 inches of snow sounds like a lot for October!

And, you're welcome, Victorian Garden Tea Room! It can be difficult to find good poems in Godey's Lady's Book because they are almost all from amateur poets who sent in manuscripts, and they tend to be very flowery and too long. This one, however, is a nice one.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
-- William Cowper (1731-1800)
"The Winter Evening" (Book Four), _The Task_ (1784)