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.