Short skirts and bare knees madly racing,
Climbing aloft on the cedar branches.
Day comes and night comes, summer and holiday,
Swift, ah! the bright hours, merry adventurers!
Tears now, a first shy kiss at parting,
Tears—and a hand at the corner waving....
White through the dawn-mist, careless of yesterday,
Life stretches onward, life the attainable
White road along dim hills of dreamland;
Childhood is dead, and the leaves drift over.