The summer blooms are fading
Upon the lawn and lea,
And I'm thinking as I'm gazing,
Have they bloomed their last for me?
A darker hue has fallen
Upon the hill and vale,
While now and then a leaflet
Floats downward through the gale.
With bounding heart at spring-time
I loved each bud and stem,
But now when they are drooping,
I'm drooping, too, with them.
I've had such wild, gay visions
Of a mission that was mine;
But, perchance, its glad fulfilment
Lies in another clime.
I have watched the mystic webbing
That my loom of life has done,
The threads of light and shadow
It mingled one by one;
And wondered if it gathered
Those hues of deepest night,
Only to make the seeming
Of the gayer tints more bright.
Sometimes a thread is broken,
And a mar is left to tell
Where some fond hope lies buried,
Or some one cherished fell.
Perhaps 't is almost woven,
This strangely-mingled web;
Perhaps the weaver holdeth
E'en now the closing thread.
