206 Walks in New England 



We have a better part of Nature than they who 

 dwell under the tropics and know no repose in 

 the things that grow and glorify earth, and see no 

 wondrous arising from death to life as we when 

 the bluebird drops out of the March sky upon 

 our roadside weeds, and finds its food in their 

 seeds, and the trillium glows over the beach leaves 

 on the southern slope, and finally lilac time comes 

 again, and apple-blossoms, and the fire-hang-bird 

 flashing among their sweet delights. In those 

 climes where Nature works incessantly, man de 

 clines and dwarfs ; here, where she rests and renews, 

 man has the energies that make the world advance. 

 And so there is a deep pleasure in the farewell we 

 pay each year to the splendid bloom of the forests 

 and the warm and palpitating skies of summer. 



The fall has not been so rich in colour as other 

 falls, because the long dry time, with its soft airs, 

 enervated the trees ; as roses in June when there 

 is not rain enough have but half their beauty and 

 scatter their petals like poppies, so the leaves in 

 a dry autumn are less glorious in hue, and less 

 tenacious of their slender hold, and sooner than 

 their wont yield to the light October winds, 



&quot; And fall like flakes of light, 

 To the ground.&quot; 



Yet there were never more brilliant sidehills 



