Can’t tell what it is about
Old October knocks me out!—­
I sleep well enough at night—­
And the blamedest appetite
Ever mortal man possessed,—­
Last thing et, it tastes the best!—­
Warnuts, butternuts, pawpaws,
’Iles and limbers up my jaws
Fer raal service, sich as new
Pork, spareribs, and sausage, too.—­
Yit, fer all, they’s somepin’ ’bout
Old October knocks me out!

OLD-FASHIONED ROSES

They ain’t no style about ’em,
  And they’re sorto’ pale and faded,
Yit the doorway here, without ’em,
 Would be lonesomer, and shaded
  With a good ’eal blacker shadder
   Than the morning-glories makes,
  And the sunshine would look sadder
   Fer their good old-fashion’ sakes,

I like ’em ’cause they kindo’—­
 Sorto’ make a feller like ’em! 
And I tell you, when I find a
 Bunch out whur the sun kin strike ’em,
It allus sets me thinkin’
 O’ the ones ’at used to grow
And peek in thro’ the chinkin’
 O’ the cabin, don’t you know!

And then I think o’ mother,
 And how she ust to love ’em—­
When they wuzn’t any other,
 ’Less she found ’em up above ’em! 
   And her eyes, afore she shut ’em,
    Whispered with a smile and said
   We must pick a bunch and putt ’em
    In her hand when she wuz dead.

But, as I wuz a-sayin’,
 They ain’t no style about ’em
Very gaudy er displaying
 But I wouldn’t be without ’em,—­
  ’Cause I’m happier in these posies,
    And the hollyhawks and sich,
 Than the hummin’-bird ’at noses
    In the roses of the rich.

A COUNTRY PATHWAY

I come upon it suddenly, alone—­
 A little pathway winding in the weeds
That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own,
 I wander as it leads.

Full wistfully along the slender way,
 Through summer tan of freckled shade and shine,
I take the path that leads me as it may—­
 Its every choice is mine.

A chipmunk, or a sudden-whirring quail,
 Is startled by my step as on I fare—­
A garter-snake across the dusty trail
 Glances and—­is not there.

Above the arching jimson-weeds flare twos
 And twos of sallow-yellow butterflies,
Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose
 When autumn winds arise.

The trail dips—­dwindles—­broadens then, and lifts
 Itself astride a cross-road dubiously,
And, from the fennel marge beyond it, drifts
 Still onward, beckoning me.

And though it needs must lure me mile on mile
 Out of the public highway, still I go,
My thoughts, far in advance in Indian-file,
 Allure me even so.

Why, I am as a long-lost boy that went
 At dusk to bring the cattle to the bars,
And was not found again, though Heaven lent
 His mother all the stars