IMPOSTOR

This Autumn of the yellow lanes

Is come a sorry vagabond,

Grown tearful now and over-fond

Of grey and melancholy rains.

He loves his griefs and broken sighs,

His sorrows of a thousand years,—

And thinks we do not know those tears

Are wood-smoke in his eyes.

If leaves go by us in a gust,

He needs must clutch his heart, and say:

“Alas” or else “Alack-a-day” —

And thinks we take it all on trust.

So sad and sad a rake he is!—

And yet so glad of being sad,

Knowing no fellow ever had

Such fine, becoming griefs as his.