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September

by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1904

In the turbulent beauty
  Of a gusty Autumn day,
Poet on a sunny headland
  Sighed his soul away.

Farms the sunny landscape dappled,
  Swandown clouds dappled the farms,
Cattle lowed in mellow distance
  Where far oaks outstretched their arms.

Sudden gusts came full of meaning,
  All too much to him they said,
Oh, south winds have long memories,
  Of that be none afraid.

I cannot tell rude listeners
  Half the tell-tale South-wind said,—
’T would bring the blushes of yon maples
  To a man and to a maid.

Published in The Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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