The Gypsy's Warning.

For summer is loan-some. There is an air of airiness in the air, a vague unrest in the body-and-soul, an urge to up-and-away.

Is there something in the early
Summer days, the hurly burly
Of the Earth's arboreal ardours,
After Winter's raw retarders,
When she yawns and wakes the
verdure
Which responds, “O.K., we heard yer.”?
Is there something in the balmy
Subtle scents of Nature's army,
Lining up in mass formation
For its annual assignation
With the lords of love and laughter,
And Old Sol … the gentle grafter?
Is there something limsy-laden
Which responds in man and maiden,
Causing mild intoxication
And assisting animation?
Is there something … Something
subtle—
In the everlasting shuttle
In the weft and woof of season,
Which upsets the human reason?
Is there something mildly maddish
In the air when rows of radish,
Curly kale and little lettuce
Aid our amours, and abet us?
Is that reckless feckless feeling,
Sending rhyme and reason reeling,
Making sober-sided pacers
Itch to roam the open spaces,
Just a trick of Summer's sewing
Guaranteed to get us going,
So we long to visit parts
Which we've harboured in our hearts,
Such as Tripoli and Asia

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And the plains of Anastasia?
Or perchance the explanation
Of this summer aberration
Is that each of us gets tipsy
With that fundamental gypsy
Which, although life's sought to tame us,
In the summer comes to claim us.
That's the reason! We are roamers,
Though environs make us “homers,”
But, deny it if we can,
We've the cloven hoof of Pan.