Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined 
future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or a 
passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced that 
even the smallest particle of the surrounding world was charged 
with a purpose of impossible grandeur; ah, yes, and one would 
look up into the trees and be thrilled by the wind-loosened river 
of pale, gold foliage cascading down and by the high, melodious 
singing of countless birds; those moments, so many and so long 
ago, still come back, but briefly, like fireflies in the perfumed heat 
of a summer night.