The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley in ten volumes |
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AN AUTUMNAL TONIC |
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 | The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley |  |
963
AN AUTUMNAL TONIC
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.
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.
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.
| The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley | |