Josiah Conder (1789-1855)

The Seasons

Spring, summer, autumn! priestesses that hold

Alternate watch at nature's altar! Deep

And full of mystery the course ye keep

In hidden sympathy. First, chastely cold,

Thou, vestal spring, most gently dost unfold

The oracles of nature, and from sleep

Enchanted bid her infant beauties peep.

Thou, summer, dost inscribe in living gold

The fullness of each promise sibylline,

And makest in part the bright fruition thine,

Murmuring soft music from her leafy fane:

Till autumn's stores reveal in corn and wine

The meaning shut in every bud and grain.

Then comes the solemn pause which calls spring back again.

Now day survives the sun. The pale grey skies

A sort of dull and dubious lustre keep

As with their own light shining. Nature lies

Slumbering, and gazing on me in her sleep,

So still, so mute, with fixed and soul-less eyes.

The sun is set, yet not a star is seen:

Distinct the landscape, save where intervene

The creeping mists that from the dark stream rise;

Now spread into a sea with islets broken,

And woodland points, now poised on the thin air:

In the black west the clouds a storm betoken

And all things seem a spectral gloom to wear.

The cautious bat resents the lingering light,

And the long-folded sheep wonder it is not night.

There is, I think, no sunshine like the sky

Of those mild, breezy, cloudless autumn days

Which tempt once more abroad the butterfly

To search for lingering flowers; when the green sprays

Of ash, now loosened, drop on him who strays

Through woodland paths, while the light yellow leaves

Of fading trees come dancing down all ways

Like wingéd things; and oft the stream receives

Full many a tiny voyager, whirled along

Amid its eddies;--when the gossamer spreads

Over the fresh clods her trembling silvery threads;

And robin, thinly screened, his sweetest song

Pours forth as if triumphant over the scene,

He said, "Spring will return, and all again be green."