Sonnet XXXVII Autumn
Thro’ changing Months a well-attemper’d Mind
Welcomes their gentle or terrific pace.—
When o’er retreating Autumn’s golden grace
Tempestuous Winter spreads in every wind
Naked asperity, our musings find
Grandeur increasing, as the Glooms efface
Variety and glow.—Each solemn trace
Exalts the thoughts, from sensual joys refin’d.
Then blended in our rapt ideas rise
The vanish’d charms, that summer-suns reveal,
With all of desolation, that now lies
Dreary before us;—teach the Soul to feel
Awe in the Present, pleasure in the Past,
And to see vernal Morns in Hope’s perspective cast.
October 27th, 1782.