I Am The Autumnal Sun

Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature 
— not his Father but his Mother stirs 
within him, and he becomes immortal with her
immortality. From time to time she claims 
kindredship with us, and some globule 
from her veins steals up into our own.

I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run;
When will the hazel put forth its flowers,
Or the grape ripen under my bowers?
When will the harvest or the hunter’s moon
Turn my midnight into mid-noon?
I am all sere and yellow,
And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief….
Henry David Thoreau (1849)