Experient of myriads of seasons am I,
Journeyer over consecutive seasons, the annual return of the seasons,
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life.
As consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Songs of continued years I sing, that chant of the seasons and time.
My verses, written first for the summer’s, autumn’s spread,
I pass to snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses winter-cool’d the same.

Ever upon this stage is acted God’s calm annual drama,
Seasons pursuing each other.
Sometimes in spring, oftener in autumn, perfectly clear weather;
In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake, in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming.

O the farmer’s joys!
To plough land in the spring for maize,
To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,
To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall.

O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me,
Autumn and winter are in the dreams,
Nor do I forget you departed, nor in winter or summer my lost ones,
Watch’d for many a month, remember’d many a winter and many a summer.

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums—
Good in all, in the annual return of the seasons.

We have watch’d the seasons dispensing themselves and passing on,
All summer, forever, and all winter also, content,
And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?
Fear not, be candid, be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,
And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,
And may be just as much as the seasons.

NEXT: SUMMER