Nathaniel A. Haven (1790–1826)

I LOVE the dews of night,

I love the howling wind;

I love to hear the tempest sweep

O’er the billows of the deep!

For nature’s saddest scenes delight

The melancholy mind.

Autumn! I love thy bower

With faded garlands drest:

How sweet, alone to linger there,

When tempests ride the midnight air!

To snatch from mirth a fleeting hour,

The sabbath of the breast!

Autumn! I love thee well;

Though bleak thy breezes blow,

I love to see the vapors rise,

And clouds roll wildly round the skies,

Where from the plain, the mountains swell,

And foaming torrents flow.

Autumn! thy fading flowers

Droop but to bloom again;

So man, though doom’d to grief awhile,

To hang on fortune’s fickle smile,

Shall glow in heaven with nobler powers,

Nor sigh for peace in vain.