WHAT mystery is it? The morning as rare As the Indian Summer may bring! A tang in the frost and a spice in the air That no city poet can sing! The crimson and amber and gold of the leaves, As they loosen and flutter and fall In the path of the park, as it rustlingly weaves Its way through the maples and under the eaves Of the sparrows that chatter and call. What hint of delight is it tingles me through? -- What vague, indefinable joy? What yearning for something divine that I knew When a wayward and wood-roving boy? Ah-ha! and Oho! but I have it, I say -- Oh, the mystery brightens at last, -- 'Tis the longing and zest of the far, far away, For a bountiful, old-fashioned dinner to-day, With the hale harvest-hands of the past. |