In Autumn Days

A tangled thicket by a purling stream,

A moss-grown nook where yellow sunbeams gleam;

A maiden fairer than a poet's dream

In autumn days;

An eye whose liquid depths of deepest blue

Reflect the promise of affection true,

A dainty foot and ankle peeping through

The twilight's haze.

A silence eloquent with prophesy,

A dimpling blush, a low half-smothered sigh,

Or was it but the wind that rustled nigh

Our emerald throne?

A mutual ecstasy to rapture fanned,

A shadow stealing over all the land,

A wandering homeward, slowly, hand in hand,

She's all my own!

Bertrand A. Smalley

Index to poems in the collection by Bertrand A. Smalley