I.

Its gay farewell to hospitable eaves The swallow twitter'd in the autumn heaven; Dumb on the crisp earth fell the yellowing leaves, Or, in small eddies, fitfully were driven Down the bleak waste of the remorseless air. Out, from the widening gaps in dreary boughs, Alone the laurel smiled,--as freshly fair As its own chaplet on immortal brows, When Fame, indifferent to the changeful sun, Sees waning races wither, and lives on.-- An old man sate before that deathless tree Which bloom'd his humble dwelling-place beside; The last pale rose which lured the lingering bee To the low porch it scantly blossom'd o'er, Nipp'd by the frost-air had that morning died. The clock faint-heard beyond the gaping door, Low as a death-watch, click'd the moments' knell; And through the narrow opening you might see Uncertain foot-prints on the sanded floor (Uncertain foot-prints which of blindness tell); The rude oak board, the morn's untasted fare; The scatter'd volumes and the pillow'd chair, In which, worn out with toil and travel past, Life, the poor wanderer, finds repose at last.