Wood-Folk Lore. To T. B. M.

For every one

Beneath the sun,

Where Autumn walks with quiet eyes,

There is a word,

Just overheard

When hill to purple hill replies.

This afternoon,

As warm as June,

With the red apples on the bough,

I set my ear

To hark and hear

The wood-folk talking, you know-how.

There comes a "Hush!"

And then a "Tush,"

As tree to scarlet tree responds,

"Babble away!

He'll not betray

The secrets of us vagabonds.

"Are we not all,

Both great and small,

Cousins and kindred in a joy

No school can teach,

No worldling reach,

Nor any wreck of chance destroy?"

And so we are,

However far

We journey ere the journey ends,

One brotherhood

With leaf and bud

And everything that wakes or wends.

The wind that blows

My autumn rose

Where Grand Pro looks to Blomidon,--

How great must be

The company

Of roses, he has leaned upon,

Since first he shed

Their petals red

Through Persian gardens long ago,

When Omar heard

His muttered word

Rumoring things we may not know!

Our brother ghost,

He is a most

Incorrigible wanderer;

And still to-day

He takes his way

About my hills of spruce and fir;

Will neither bide

By the great tide,

In apple lands of Acadie,

Nor in the leaves

About your eaves,

Where Scituate looks out to sea.