There’s a path beside the river,

Winding through the willow copse

Where I love to walk in autumn

Ere the season’s curtain drops.

On far hillsides beech and maple,

Touched by early nipping frost,

Have their brown and crimson jackets

To the boisterous breezes tossed.

Still the willow leaves are clinging,

Latest foliage of fall,

Shading yet my river pathway

Underneath the osiers tall.

On the wimpling water’s surface

Drift a million truant leaves,

Stolen from the woodland reaches

By the wind, the prince of thieves.

All along the river edges

Verdure’s turned to brown and gray,

Rustling through the dying sedges

Autumn’s low voiced breezes play.

Nowhere sweeter walk or rarer

Than my path beside the stream.

There I love to stroll in autumn,

There to loiter and to dream.

—Frank Farrington.