SEPTEMBER DARK

I

The air falls chill;
The whippoorwill
Pipes lonesomely behind the hill: 
The dusk grows dense,
The silence tense;
And lo, the katydids commence.

II

Through shadowy rifts
Of woodland, lifts
The low, slow moon, and upward drifts,
While left and right
The fireflies’ light
Swirls eddying in the skirts of Night.

III

O Cloudland, gray
And level, lay
Thy mists across the face of Day! 
At foot and head,
Above the dead,
O Dews, weep on uncomforted!

THE CLOVER

Some sings of the lily, and daisy, and rose,
   And the pansies and pinks that the Summertime
          throws
In the green grassy lap of the medder that lays
Blinkin’ up at the skyes through the sunshiney days;
But what is the lily and all of the rest
Of the flowers, to a man with a hart in his brest
That was dipped brimmin’ full of the honey and dew
Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew? 
I never set eyes on a clover-field now,
Er fool round a stable, er climb in the mow,
But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane
As the smell of the clover I’m sniffin’ again;
And I wunder away in a bare-footed dream,
Whare I tangle my toes in the blossoms that gleam
With the dew of the dawn of the morning of love
Ere it wept ore the graves that I’m weepin’ above.

And so I love clover—­it seems like a part
Of the sacerdest sorrows and joys of my hart;
And wharever it blossoms, oh, thare let me bow
And thank the good God as I’m thankin’ Him now;
And I pray to Him still fer the stren’th when I die,
To go out in the clover and tell it good-bye,
And lovin’ly nestle my face in its bloom
While my soul slips away on a breth of purfume

OLD OCTOBER

Old October’s purt’ nigh gone,
And the frosts is comin’ on
Little heavier every day—­
Like our hearts is thataway! 
Leaves is changin’ overhead
Back from green to gray and red,
Brown and yeller, with their stems
Loosenin’ on the oaks and e’ms;
And the balance of the trees
Gittin’ balder every breeze—­
Like the heads we’re scratchin’ on! 
Old October’s purt’ nigh gone.

I love Old October so,
I can’t bear to see her go—­
Seems to me like losin’ some
Old-home relative er chum—­
‘Pears like sorto’ settin’ by
Some old friend ’at sigh by sigh
Was a-passin’ out o’ sight
Into everlastin’ night! 
Hickernuts a feller hears
Rattlin’ down is more like tears
Drappin’ on the leaves below—­
I love Old October so!