Autumn on Staten Island

The autumnal breeze was sharp, when first I soughtThy friendship, sweetest Island of the main,Yet still in sunny nooks, with verdure fraught,Wore lingering flowers of summer's blissful reign,Whose grateful fragrance cheered the faded plain,And sheltered knoll, that seemed the Frost to fear;For that invader, with his fatal train,Had touched the aspiring boughs with umber sere,And, stern and cold, announced the funeral of the year.

Yes; that prophetic flush, so strange and brief,Which, like the hectic, shows the Spoiler nigh,Hung here and there, upon the forest leaf,And tinged the maple with a blood-red die,While through the groves there came a mournful sighOf hollow winds, bewailing Nature's doom;But still the brightness of the unclouded skyDid with its spirit-glance reprove the gloom,Like that immortal Faith which shrinks not at the tomb.

But thou, blest Isle, when verdant seasons die,Hast many a charm, which change can ne'er impair,And all that meets the mirror of thine eyeSeems softened like a dream. For thee, with care,The great, proud City, beaming smiles doth wear,And shroud in distance, every darkened trace,Which penury, or pain, or guilt doth bear,And, like a lover, show its fairest face,Lifting its mighty head in majesty and grace.

So I have throned thee in mine inmost heart,Fair Daughter of the Sea, around whose breastThe sparkling waters meet, and never part,But tuneful sing thee to thy nightly rest;Or if, by wintry blast and storm opprest,Fierce at thy feet the surging billows roll,Thou, in serenity and glory drest,Dost still the madness of their mood control,And strong in beauty's power, disarm the wrathful soul.