I Am The Autumnal Sun

-Henry David Thoreau

--Sometimes a mortal feels in himself

Nature --

not his Father

but his Mother

stirs within him,

and he becomes immortal

with her immortality.

From time to time

she claims kindredship with us,

and some globule from her veins

steals up into our own.

I am the autumnal sun,

With autumn gales my race is run;

When will the hazel put forth its flowers,

Or the grape ripen under my bowers?

When will the harvest or the hunter's moon

Turn my midnight into mid-noon?

I am all sere and yellow,

And to my core mellow.

The mast is dropping within my woods,

The winter is lurking within my moods,

And the rustling of the withered leaf

Is the constant music of my grief...