Another change subdues them in the fall,
      But saddens not; they still show merrier tints, 135
        Though sober russet seems to cover all;
      When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints,
        Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across,
        Redeems with rarer hues the season’s loss,
    As Dawn’s feet there had touched and left their rosy prints. 140

        Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest,
      Lean o ’er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill,
        While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west,
      Glow opposite;—­the marshes drink their fill
        And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fade 145
        Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade,
    Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond’s darkening hill.

        Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts,
      Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates,
        And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 150
      While firmer ice the eager boy awaits,
        Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire,
        And until bedtime plays with his desire,
    Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;—­

        Then, every morn, the river’s banks shine bright 155
      With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail,
        By the frost’s clinking hammers forged at night,
      ’Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail,
        Giving a pretty emblem of the day
        When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, 160
    And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war’s cramping mail.

        And now those waterfalls the ebbing river
      Twice every day creates on either side
        Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver
      In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; 165
        High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow,
        The silvered flats gleam frostily below,
    Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide.

        But crowned in turn by vying seasons three,
      Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; 170
        This glory seems to rest immovably,—­
      The others were too fleet and vanishing;
        When the hid tide is at its highest flow,
        O’er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow
    With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. 175

        The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind,
      As pale as formal candles lit by day;
        Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind;
      The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play,
        Show pearly breakers combing o’er their lee, 180
        White crests as of some just enchanted sea,
    Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway.