114 BOULDER REVERIES. 



body. They are, perchance, avant-couriers, sent 

 out to welcome me to my old resting place. For 

 here is peace that most precious of possessions 

 and quiet that most restful of conditions 

 and reverie that comes but seldom to me now 

 as the days and the years, full of labor and of 

 duty, surge and roll by. Oh, the beating of the 

 waves of time, how incessantly they break and 

 pass, and yet how surely they bear us on on 

 on toward the breakers of that unknown shore, 

 where all must rest at last ! 



As I came hither this morn, slowly saunter- 

 ing through woodland pasture and adown the 

 valley where the streamlet glides, I noted, more 

 than once, the long, wavering, graceful flight of 

 the common red-head. From the top of some 

 dead snag he descries another a hundred yards 

 away. Perhaps there are borers there, or beetles 

 circling about, or some other winged or creep- 

 ing form which will serve as food. So his cere- 

 bral cells beget a desire to visit, and this desire 

 begets in turn a command to muscular cells to 

 carry him thither. Away he starts straight 

 as far as direction goes but ever in an up and 



