Songs from Vagabondia

I have always loved this poem, and was thinking about it today while cycling to work through a residential neighbourhood full of beautiful old trees.

"A Vagabond Song"

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood--
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

-- Bliss Carman (1861-1929)