And because our summers were always ending, and because they lasted forever, we grew impatient with our games, we sought new and more intense ones; and as the crickets of August grew louder, and a single red leaf appeared on branches green with summer, we threw ourselves as if desperately into new adventures, while the long days, never changing, grew heavy with boredom and longing. 

From one of my favorite short stories Flying Carpets, by Steven Millhauser. It might be my favorite short story. Is there any other description of summer so true, going to fall so true, that has ever been put on the page? I doubt it.

Maybe Thoreau?

Steven Millhauser, The Knife Thrower and Other Stories (New York: Crown Publishers, 1998), 77.