I do remember in the Long Ago
How flamed the maple 'gainst the clouded sky,
While oak and hickory as with human sigh
Saw all the ground their dying leaves bestrow.
Ah, then the pulse of things beat sad and low,
And silently the shrivelled brook passed by
Where wakening Winter seemed so very nigh,
We faintly heard his boreal trumpet blow.
But then what joy rapaciously to loot
The pawpaw's and persimmon's luscious fruit,
That ripening frost had lovingly passed o'er,
As walnuts from their mother trees fell down,
On many an eve the jocund feast to crown,
With jennetings all mellow to the core.
