And bound them on her slender feet
Bruised with the long hot trail,
And gone again the onward way
With lusty pilgrim hail.
Bruised with the long hot trail,
And gone again the onward way
With lusty pilgrim hail.
She counts the sparrows on the rail,
Brown notes of song they seem
Left by some singer in the sun
Of summer's long lost dream.
The Bobwhite's call she whistles back
Across the wind-blown sedge,
Or laughs into an empty nest
Bared in the rifled hedge.
Brown notes of song they seem
Left by some singer in the sun
Of summer's long lost dream.
The Bobwhite's call she whistles back
Across the wind-blown sedge,
Or laughs into an empty nest
Bared in the rifled hedge.
Her once loose hair is braided close
And crowned with crimson leaves
And now and then she stops to lift
A gleaner's golden sheaves;
And now and then, without a thought
Of lawlessness or shame,
With quick incendiary torch
She sets the woods aflame.
And crowned with crimson leaves
And now and then she stops to lift
A gleaner's golden sheaves;
And now and then, without a thought
Of lawlessness or shame,
With quick incendiary torch
She sets the woods aflame.
For on before there swiftly passed—
Unseen of eyes of man—
The Gypsy Frost, and laid for her
The year's last patteran.
And she will follow that dim path
As o'er the hills it goes
Until she casts her crimson crown
Down at the Gate of Snows.
Unseen of eyes of man—
The Gypsy Frost, and laid for her
The year's last patteran.
And she will follow that dim path
As o'er the hills it goes
Until she casts her crimson crown
Down at the Gate of Snows.
88
