Kate Elizabeth Clark
"Contributor to magazines." (Sharp)
An Autumn Night
What mellow radiance wraps the slumbering world,
Soothing its harshness with benignant hand!
Against a lustrous amber background stand
Black-bordered leaves and branches loosely-swirled;
In flushed or citrine-tinted heaps close-curled
The apples rest; the orange pumpkins yield
To cumbrous sleep; and on the spreading field
The tasselled tents of ripened corn are furled.
Elusive spirits flutter everywhere
'Mid moist brown leaves, and all the vaporous air
Is filled with whispering in an unknown tongue.
Yet not unknown; Thy praise is every sound,
The teeming earth Thine altar is, fruit-crowned,
The moon a golden censer near it swung.
(Text from American Sonnets)
