Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection.

O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all.

The sweet calm sunshine of October, now Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold The purple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough Drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.

Child-crafted clouds, all sheen and fleece and curlicues, As a girl, with her tongue in her teeth, would have made them, The point of her crayon squashed against the page.

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer’s best of weather And autumn’s best of cheer.

Before us the wide ocean runs to meet the limpid sky Our hearts are full of poignant life, and care has fled afar As sweeps the white-winged fishing fleet across the harbor bar.

Although it is a cold evening, Down by one of the fishhouses An old man sits netting, His net, in the gloaming almost invisible.

The breezes taste Of apple peel. The air is full Of smells to feel — Ripe fruit, old footballs, Burning brush, New books, erasers, Chalk, and such.

 It is a real chill out, The genuine thing. I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer Because sun stays and birds continue to sing.

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.

You better think (think) Think about what you’re trying to do to me Think (think) Let your mind go, let yourself be free.

Open the window, and let the air Freshly blow upon face and hair And fill the room, as it fills the night, With the breath of the rain’s sweet might.

The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

That beautiful season the Summer! Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; And the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.

But happiness floats. It doesn’t need you to hold it down. It doesn’t need anything. Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing, and disappears when it wants to.

He tilted his nose and ran, Kin to all time as small boys are Who name each shell and seaweed-fan And clock their living by a star.

Even the morning is formal. A coughing dog scatters the birds, whose quick hysteria Becomes a lady’s fan against the fog.

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, And here on earth come emulating flies, That though they never equal stars in size, (And they were never really stars at heart).

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud, Merely one of the surging crowd Toiling, striving from day to day, Facing whatever may come his way.