TO AUTUMN. Ann Radcliffe (née Ward) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Radcliffe, Ann Ward, 1764-1823. The Poems of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. London printed by and for J. Smith, Princes Street 1816 pp. 88-89. 118p. [Radcliffe's poems only, pp. 1-95]

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TO AUTUMN . Sweet Autumn ! how the melancholy grace Steals on my heart , as through these shades I wind ! Sooth'd by thy breathing sigh , I fondly trace Each lonely image of the pensive mind ! Lov'd scenes , lov'd friends — long lost ! around me rise , And wake the melting thought , the tender tear ! That tear , that thought , which more than mirth I prize — Sweet as the gradual tint that paints thy year ! Thy farewell smile , with fond regret , I view , Thy beaming lights , soft gliding o'er the woods ; Thy distant landscape , touch'd with yellow hue , While falls the lengthen'd gleam ; thy winding floods , Now veil'd in shade , save where the skiff's white sails Swell to the breeze , and catch thy streaming ray . But now , e'en now ! — the partial vision fails , And the wave smiles , as sweeps the cloud away ! Emblem of life ! — Thus checquer'd is its plan , Thus joy succeeds to grief — thus smiles the varied man !