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sky blue, brilliant, .intense, hard. March 

 winds have blown out of it all hint of soft- 

 ness. Not one lingering, trailing cirrus 

 deepens the cold east's pallid rose. The 

 wings of the morning have borne them all 

 away. Far, far to southward, maybe, they 

 distil in gentle showers upon orange and 

 palm and pine forgetting, amid such wealth 

 of tropic bloom, this temperate earth, bedia- 

 monded as for a bridal the bridal of flower 

 and sun. 



Through the intervening valley the creek 

 roars at flood a water-giant, turbid, yel- 

 low, too strong for the fettering of frost. 

 Look well at its fringing trees. Elm, ash, 

 maple, listened all to the traitor, wind, 

 while he wooed soft so soft! See them 

 all atassel. Their green, thready bloom 

 droops piteously indeed. A little while, 

 and it will lose its crystal bravery, to fall 

 earthward, dark and dank, leaving behind 

 it no memory of fruit. 



Here, tree and field show heavy-white with 

 rime. So much they owe to the brawling 

 water. The last touch of this enchantment, 

 the earliest sun shall make it to vanish. 

 Now he is risen to half the zenith's arc. 

 On every hand you hear snapping, crash- 

 ing, tinkling. The sleet is breaking up. 

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