A fleeting wind—caught in its grasp soft

Are blades aglow in the dying gold light;

Their quiet whispering to trees aloft

Nearly deadens my steps to childhood’s night.

Summer, once holding sweet liberty’s peal,

Now cruelly clangs: I am all that remains

’Twixt you and this vast expanse I conceal

Of unknown years after my misty rains.

Oh, that I could tarry awhile and glean,

From the merciless grey river of time,

An infinite moment to glimpse the sheen

Of a passing stream with its wordless chime.

Mem’ry, don’t lose to your ill-famed cyclones

My sunlit refuge not yet filled with stones.