Dawn

As though a gipsy maiden with dim look, Sat crooning by the roadside of the year, So, Autumn, in thy strangeness, thou art here To read dark fortunes for us from the book Of fate; thou flingest in the crinkled brook The trembling maple's gold, and frosty-clear Thy mocking laughter thrills the atmosphere, And drifting on its current calls the rook To other lands. As one who wades, alone, Deep in the dusk, and hears the minor talk Of distant melody, and finds the tone, In some wierd way compelling him to stalk The paths of childhood over,--so I moan, And like a troubled sleeper, groping, walk.