Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, A rare old plant is the ivy green. Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed, And nations scattered been; But the stout old ivy shall never fade Shall fatten upon the past; For the stateliest building man can raise Creeping where no life is seen, Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. "When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still. And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill." |