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insect life; there was a mellow splendour 

 in the moonlight, which touched the dis- 

 tant hills and wide-spreading waters with a 

 pathetic prophecy of change. And now, 

 ripe, serene, and rich with the accumu- 

 lated beauty of the summer, the autumn 

 flowers appeared. Their movement was 

 like the stately dances of olden times ; 

 youth and its overflow were gone forever ; 

 but in the hour of maturity there remained 

 a noble beauty, which touched all imagina- 

 tions and communicated to all visible things 

 a splendour of which the most radiant hours 

 of early summer had been only faintly pro- 

 phetic. In the calm of these golden days 

 the autumn flowers reigned with a more 

 than regal state, and when the first cold 

 breath of winter touched them, they fell 

 from their great estate silently and royally 

 as if their fate were matched to their rank. 

 And now the fields were bare once more. 

 From such a dream as this I often awake 

 joyfully to find the drama still in its first 

 act, and to feel still before me the ever- 

 deepening interest and ever-widening beauty 

 46 



