Classic Poem

I hear the woodlands calling, and their red is like the blare
Of trumpets in the air,
Where rebel Autumn plants her tents and crowns her gypsy hair.
I hear her beauty calling glad, with crimson and with gold,
As oft it called of old;
And I must forth and greet her there and clasp her close and hold.

As yesterday, again to-day, my heart will run to her,
The gypsy wanderer,
Through scarlet of the berry-pod and purple of the burr.
The vines that vision forth her cheeks shall tell me where she lies,
Soft gazing at the skies;
And I will steal upon her dreams and look into her eyes.
The sumach that repeats her lips shall tell me where she smiles,
Who still my heart beguiles,
And I will speak her face to face and lounge with her for miles.

A riot and a tangle there, a blur of gold and gray;
She surely went this way—
Or, so it seems, the maples cry, the cloudy asters say.
Oh, I must up and strike the trail, that often I have gone,
At sunset and at dawn,
Where all the beauty of the world puts all her splendor on.
I hear her bugles on the hills; I see her banners blowing,
And all her campfires glowing,—
The campfires of her dreams,—and I—I must be up and going.