Chapter XLIX: Indian Summer.j

SAMUEL LOVER.--1797-1868.

When summer's verdant beauty flies,
And autumn glows with richer dyes,
A softer charm beyond them lies--
It is the Indian summer.
Ere winter's snows and winter's breeze
Bereave of beauty all the trees,
The balmy spring renewal sees
In the sweet Indian summer.

And thus, dear love, if early years
Have drown'd the germ of joy in tears,
A later gleam of hope appears--
Just like the Indian summer:
And ere the snows of age descend,
O trust me, dear one, changeless friend,
Our falling years may brightly end--
Just like the Indian summer.

FOOTNOTES:

[J] The brief period which succeeds the autumnal close, called the "Indian Summer,"--a reflex, as it were, of the early portion of the year--strikes a stranger in America as peculiarly beautiful, and quite charmed me.--LOVER.