Part 33 (1/2)

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir; We must rise and follow her, When from every hill of flame She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

Somewhere. [John Vance Cheney]

The weasel thieves in silver suit, The rabbit runs in gray; And Pan takes up his frosty flute To pipe the cold away.

The flocks are folded, boughs are bare, The salmon take the sea; And O my fair, would I somewhere Might house my heart with thee!

”Frost To-Night”. [Edith M. Thomas]

Apple-green west and an orange bar, And the crystal eye of a lone, one star . . .

And, ”Child, take the shears and cut what you will, Frost to-night -- so clear and dead-still.”

Then, I sally forth, half sad, half proud, And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd, The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied, -- The dahlias that reign by the garden-side.

The dahlias I might not touch till to-night!

A gleam of the shears in the fading light, And I gathered them all, -- the splendid throng, And in one great sheaf I bore them along.

In my garden of Life with its all-late flowers I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours: ”Frost to-night -- so clear and dead-still” . . .

Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.

Under Arcturus. [Madison Cawein]

I

”I belt the morn with ribboned mist; With baldricked blue I gird the noon, And dusk with purple, crimson-kissed, White-buckled with the hunter's-moon.

”These follow me,” the Season says: ”Mine is the frost-pale hand that packs Their scrips, and speeds them on their ways, With gypsy gold that weighs their backs.”

II

A daybreak horn the Autumn blows, As with a sun-tanned hand he parts Wet boughs whereon the berry glows; And at his feet the red fox starts.