Chapter II

Down along the dwindled creek We go loitering. We speak Only with old questionings Of the dear remembered things Of the days of long ago, When the stream seemed thus and so In our boyish eyes:--The bank Greener then, through rank on rank Of the mottled sycamores, Touching tops across the shores: Here, the hazel thicket stood-- There, the almost pathless wood Where the shellbark hickory tree Rained its wealth on you and me. Autumn! as you loved us then, Take us to your heart again!