SUMMER fervors slacken; <br />Sumac torches dim; <br />There's bronze upon the bracken; <br />September has a whim <br />For carmine, pearl and amber <br />Touches on her green; <br />Busy squirrels clamber; <br />Restless birds convene. <br />Where Indian pipe still blanches, <br />Where hoary lichen flakes <br />Forest trunks and branches, <br />The golden foxglove makes <br />A mimic wood that tosses <br />Warning to the trees, <br />Then droops upon the mosses, <br />Heavy with bloom and bees. <br />What rumbelow of revel <br />Deep in those honey-jars! <br />A saffron moth, with level <br />And languid motion, stars <br />The air until he settles <br />At the last pink-clover inn, <br />Ignoring prouder petals <br />That would his favor win. <br />Among those wildwood vagrants <br />I strolled, alone no more. <br />Was it the sweet-fern fragrance <br />That stirred a long-sealed door <br />Of Time's enchanted tower? <br />A little maid ran free <br />And for one sunny hour <br />My childhood played with me.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/playmates-2/
