OCTOBER 253 



south wind blows deliciously, and a lark sings unseen high 

 above ; day by day it has sung for some time past, often 

 when lost to sight, soaring through the low-hanging clouds 

 of grey, its song falling earthward, powerless to rise through 

 the mist and seek for the blue that lies beyond. 



" I know not which is sweeter, no, not I," 



the lark's song in the Spring or Summer or at Autumntide. 

 To hear its silvery notes in Spring above a world of waking 

 leaves, is to listen to a tune ethereal, that rises and rises, 

 borne upward with the clear ascending air ; to listen to its 

 song on some June day above a garden of roses or the 

 rustling green wheat lit with the poppies' flames, is to have 

 the whole meaning of Summer interpreted to us. But to 

 hear it in Autumn, as it mounts through the mist on wet 

 wing, is to hear a mournful, yet mellow song, not buoyantly 

 rising as in Spring, not light and fanciful as in Summer, 

 but falling, falling, mingling with the mist, filling the land 

 with a homeless melody. 



