John Jay Chapman

Autumn Dews

THROW open the shutters, it's seven o'clock! And impertinent crows take their flight at the shock; Then dropping their breakfast, they scoff as they pass O'er the blanket of dew that lies white on the grass. The mists from the shoulders of hillsides are slipping; The low Autumn sun burns the dew-drops alive; And barberry-bushes with rubies are dripping, And gardners are heaping dead leaves by the drive. O haste to the forest!—the forest whose fingers Are clasping dank, green, little jewels of lawn: Perhaps in some shadowy clearing still lingers The track of the hare and the flame of the dawn.