Drink the breath of the crisp fall days,
Borrow the blush of the warming rays;
Storing their sweetness, their rich bouquet,
Against that savage and wintry day
When the housewife’s fingers shall by and by
Mould them into dried-apple pie.
There they mellow and there they brown,
Homely enough to a man from town,
Merely strings of some shrunken fruit,
Swung in the sun. And yet they’re mute