Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Elizabeth GreenCrane

1737 Gentian

SO all day long I followed through the fields

The voice of Autumn, calling from afar;

And now I thought: “Yon hazel thicket yields

A glimpse of her,” and now: “These asters are

Sure sign that she of late has passed this way;

Lo! here the traces of her yellow car.”

And once I looked and seemed to see her stand

Beneath a golden maple’s black-drawn boughs;

But when I reached the place, naught but a band

Of crickets did perform their tuneful vows

To the soon fading grass, and through the leaves

The quiet sunlight, falling, blessed my brows.

Till, as the long rays lengthened from the west,

I came upon an altar of gray stone,

O’er which a creeper flung with pious zest

Her flickering flames. About that altar lone,

The crowding sumac burned with steady fire;

Before it, stately, stood a priestess; one

Who turned to me her melancholy eyes.

I saw her beauty, ripe with color’s breath,

Yet veiled, as when on wood and hill there lies

A mist, a shadow, as of coming death.

And while I gazed she faded; swift I clutched

Her fringëd cloak, which rent, my grasp beneath.

And she was gone. As fluttered to the ground

Its many fragments, I with sudden fears,

Stooped, vainly seeking them, when all around

The blue fringed gentian smiled up through my tears,

As one who knows his welcome will be warm,

Although sad news to his beloved he bears.