Teachers in-service and the fair wrapping up,
The squash dying back and the robins gone,
Only transients from Canada peeping in the woods,
Elderberries purple and weighing down their bushes
Beside outbuildings abandoned and a shade grayer
For the passing of another summer, as are we,
Walking the country not to find something new,
But to discover something old,
To be reminded such things still are.
—Thoreau on the remarks of Ellery Channing, August 23, 1858
