A MAY VISIT TO MOOSILAUKE 5 



Winter. Dead leaves make an agreeable carpet, 

 as they rustle cheerfully-sadly under one's feet in 

 autumn ; but there was no rustle here ; the snow 

 had pressed every leaf flat and left it sodden. 

 One thing consoled me : I had not arrived too 

 late. The " bud-crowned spring," for all my 

 fears, was yet to " go forth." 



The next morning it was not enough to say that 

 it was cloudy. That impersonal expression would 

 have been quite below the mark. We were 

 cloudy. In short, the cloud was literally around 

 us and upon us. As I stepped out of doors, a 

 rose-breasted grosbeak was singing in one direc- 

 tion, and a white-throated sparrow in another, 

 both far away in the mist. It was strange they 

 should be so happy, I was ready to say. But I 

 bethought myself that their case was no different 

 from my own. It was comparatively clear just 

 about me, while the fog shut down like a curtain 

 a rod or two away, leaving the rest of the world 

 dark. So every bird stood in a ring of light, an 

 illuminated chantry all his own, 



And sang for joy, good Christian bird, 

 To be thus marked and favored. 



Strange had he not been happy. To be blest 

 above one's fellows is to be blest twice over. 

 This time I took the downward road, turning 



