Den tredje oktober

The New Yorker Cover, October 4 1976 

Ronald Searle 

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.

                                                             William Bliss Carman