The dry, brown leaves have dropped forlorn, And lie amid the golden grass. The wind is fresh both eve and morn. But where are summer days, alas! The tardy flowers the autumn stayed For latter treasures now unfold. The dahlia dons its gay cockade, Its flaming cap the marigold. Rain stirs the pool with pelt and shock. The swallows to the roof repair, Confabulating as they flock And feel the winter in the air. By hundreds gather they to vow Their little yearnings and intents. Saith one: "'T is fair in Athens now, Upon the sun-warm battlements! "Thither I go to take my nap Upon the Parthenon high and free. My cornice nest is in the gap A cannon-ball made there for me." And one: "A ceiling meets my needs Within a Smyrna coffee-house, Where Hadjis tell their amber beads Upon the threshold luminous. "I go and come above the folk, While their chibouques their clouds upfling. I skim along through silver smoke, And graze the turbans with my wing." Another: "There's a triglyph gray On one of Baalbec's temples high. 'T is there I go to brood all day Above my little family." Another calleth, "My address Is settled: 'At the Knights of Rhodes.' In a dark colonnade's recess I'll make the snuggest of abodes." "Old age hath made me slow for flight," Declares a fifth; "I'll rest at even On Malta's terraces of white, Where blue sea melts to blue of heaven." A sixth: "In Cairo is my home, Up in a minaret's retreat: A twig or two, a bit of loam-- My winter lodgings are complete." A last: "The Second Cataract Shall mark my place--the nest of brown A granite king doth hold intact Within the circle of his crown." And all together sing: "What miles To-morrow shall have stretched beneath Our fleeing swarm:--remembered isles, Snow peaks, vast waters, lands of heath!" With calls and cries and beat of wings, Grown eager now and venturesome, The swallows hold their twitterings, To see the blight of winter come. And I--I understand them all, Because the poet is a bird,-- Oh! but a sorry bird, and thrall To a great lack, pressed heavenward. It's Oh for wings! to seek the star, To count the seas when day is done, To breast the air with swallows far, To verdant spring, to golden sun! CHRISTMAS Black is the sky and white the ground. O ring, ye bells, your carol's grace! The Child is born! A love profound Beams o'er Him from His Mother's face. No silken woof of costly show Keeps off the bitter cold from Him. But spider-webs have drooped them low, To be His curtain soft and dim. Now trembles on the straw downspread The Little Child, the Star beneath. To warm Him in His holy bed, Upon Him ox and ass do breathe. Snow hangs its fringes on the byre. The roof stands open to the tryst Of aureoled saints, that sweetly choir To shepherds, "Come, behold the Christ!" THE DEAD CHILD'S PLAYTHINGS Marie comes no more at call. She has wandered from her play. Ah, how pitifully small Was the coffin borne away!