228 Walks in New England 



ally withers to dull brown in early frosts, have had 

 time enough to grow interesting in shining mottled 

 hues of bronze, and the Japanese ampelopsis that 

 in the city adorns so many churches and houses has 

 shown all its striking variegations of colour, which 

 are more like those of the poison ivy than the 

 simple pure colours of the woodbine, our native 

 ampelopsis, whose season is so much briefer, 

 though not less conspicuous. The eye has been 

 nobly feasted by the procession of Nature s glory 

 over hills and meadows and pastures and along 

 country roads. There is yet the harmony, the 

 poetry of earth, which Keats said is never dead ; the 

 insect musicians are not silenced utterly, as usually 

 the killing touch of frost has silenced them ere this ; 

 still on sunny mid-days the cricket s chirp and 

 the grasshopper s dry fiddling may be heard ; and 

 wasps, hornets and bumblebees dash about in 

 counterfeit of summer. The hawks sail and 

 scream over the hills ; the crows caw lustily, as 

 they will do in their customary visits all winter 

 long; even yet there are a few jolly song sparrows 

 singing for pure love of it. Gentians yet &quot; look 

 through their fringes to the sky ; &quot; nor yet has 

 every aster or golden-rod extinguished its cheerful 

 rays. The pulse of the life of God beats warmly 

 in these latter days, as in the days of beginning. 

 It may indeed be felt that in one Indian Sum- 



