September Dark

  I.

  The air falls chill;
  The whip-poor-will
  Pipes lonesomely behind the hill:
  The dusk grows dense,
  The silence tense;
  And lo, the katydids commence.

  II.

  Through shadowy rifts
  Of woodland, lifts
  The low, slow moon, and upward drifts,
  While left and right
  The fireflies' light
  Swirls eddying in the skirts of Night.

  III.

  O Cloudland, gray
  And level, lay
  Thy mists across the face of Day!
  At foot and head,
  Above the dead,
  O Dews, weep on uncomforted!