The Opal Month

Now cometh October - a nut-brown maid,     Who in robes of crimson and gold arrayed      Hath taken the king's highway!     On the world she smiles - but to me it seems     Her eyes are misty with mid-summer dreams,      Or memories of the May.     Opals agleam in the dusk of her hair     Flash their hearts of fire and colours rare      As she dances gaily by -     Yet she sighs for each empty swinging nest,     And she tenderly holds against her breast      A belated butterfly.     The crickets sing no more to the stars -     The spiders no more put up silver bars      To entangle silken wings;     But the quail pipes low in the rusted corn,     And here and there - both at night and at morn -      A lonely robin still sings.     A spice-laden breeze of the south is blent     With perfumed winds from the Orient      And they weave o'er her a spell,     For nun-like she goeth now, still and sweet -     And while mists like incense curl at her feet,      She lingers her beads to tell.