Saturday, September 22, 2012

Imperceptibly


Poem for the Autumnal Equinox

XLV


As imperceptibly as grief
The summer lapsed away,—
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like perfidy.

A quietness distilled,
As twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with herself
Sequestered afternoon.

The dusk drew earlier in,
The morning foreign shone,—
A courteous, yet harrowing grace,
As guest who would be gone.

And thus, without a wing,
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.


by Emily Dickinson
from Complete Poems, Part Two: Nature (1924)

2 comments:

  1. Happy 1st Day of Autumn everyone from Evan Todd Salon in West Lafayette, Indiana!

    "It is the summer's great last heat, It is the fall's first chill: They meet."
    –Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

    ReplyDelete