Playmates

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