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! III Season halest of the year! How the zestful atmosphere Nettles blood and brain, and smites Into life the old delights We have tasted in our youth, And our graver years, forsooth! How again the boyish heart Leaps to see the chipmunk start From the brush and sleek the sun Very beauty, as he runs! How again a subtle hint Of crushed pennyroyal or mint, Sends us on our knees, as when We were truant boys of ten-- Brown marauders of the wood, Merrier than Robin Hood! [Illustration: Where the shellbark hickory tree] IV Ah! will any minstrel say, In his sweetest roundelay, What is sweeter, after all, Than black haws, in early Fall-- Fruit so sweet the frost first sat, Dainty-toothed, and nibbled at! And will any poet sing Of a lusher, richer thing Than a ripe May-apple, rolled Like a pulpy lump of gold Under thumb and finger-tips, And poured molten through the lips? Go, ye bards of classic themes, Pipe your songs by classic streams! I would twang the redbird's wings In the thicket while he sings! THE CIRCUS-DAY PARADE Oh, the Circus-Day parade! How the bugles played and played! And how the glossy horses tossed their flossy manes, and neighed, As the rattle and the rhyme of the tenor-drummer's time Filled all the hungry hearts of us with melody sublime! How the grand band-wagon shone with a splendor all its own, And glittered with a glory that our dreams had never known! And how the boys behind, high and low of every kind, Marched in unconscious capture, with a rapture undefined! How the horsemen, two and two, with their plumes of white and blue, And crimson, gold and purple, nodding by at me and you. Waved the banners that they bore, as the Knights in days of yore, Till our glad eyes gleamed and glistened like the spangles that they wore! [Illustration: The Circus-Day Parade] How the graceless-graceful stride of the elephant was eyed, And the capers of the little horse that cantered at his side! How the shambling camels, tame to the plaudits of their fame, With listless eyes came silent, masticating as they came. [Illustration: How the cages jolted past] How the cages jolted past, with each wagon battened fast, And the mystery within it only hinted of at last From the little grated square in the rear, and nosing there The snout of some strange animal that sniffed the outer air!