III
Now is Light, sweet mother, down the west,
With little Song against her breast;
She took him up, all tired with play,
And fondly bore him far away.
While he sleeps, one wanders in his stead,
A fainter glory round her head;
She follows happy waters after,
Leaving behind low, rippling laughter.
IV
Behind the hilltop drops the sun,
The curled heat falters on the sand,
While evening's ushers, one by one,
Lead in the guests of Twilight Land.
The bird is silent overhead,
Below the beast has laid him down;
Afar, the marbles watch the dead,
The lonely steeple guards the town.
The south wind feels its amorous course
To cloistered sweet in thickets found;
The leaves obey its tender force,
And stir 'twixt silence and a sound.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: From "Poems," published by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin,
& Co., Boston.]
BLISS CARMAN
CANADA, 1861-
A VAGABOND SONG[1]
There is something in the Autumn that is native to my blood--
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
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 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 fame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
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