Kindled with a violet fire;

Matted creepers and wild cherries,

Purple-bunchèd elderberries,

And on scanty plots of sod

Groves of branchy goldenrod.

What though autumn mornings now,

Winterward with glittering brow,

Stiffen in the silver grass;

And what though robins flock and pass,

With subdued and sober call,

To the old year's funeral;

Though October's crimson leaves

Rustle at the gusty door,

And the tempest round the eaves

Alternate with pipe and roar;

I sit, as erst, unharmed, secure,

Conscious that my store is sure,

Whatsoe'er the fencèd fields,

Or the untilled forest yields

Of unhurt remembrances,

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