Dead ! Ah, no ! the white fields sleep, 



The frozen rivers flow ; 

 And summer's myriad seed-hearts beat 



Within this .breast of snow. 



With spring's first green the holly glows 



And flame of autumn late, 

 The embers of the summer warm 



In winter's roaring grate. 



The thrush's song is silent now, 



The rill no longer sings, 

 But loud and long the strong winds strike 



Ten million singing strings. 



O'er mountains high, o'er prairies far, 



Hark ! the wild paean's roll ! 

 The lyre is strung 'twixt ocean shores 



And swept from pole to pole ! 



My meeting with that frog in the dead of winter 

 was no trifling experience, nor one that the biologist 

 ought to fail to understand. Had I been a poet, that 

 meeting would have been of consequence to all the 

 world ; as I was, however, it meant something only 

 to me, a new point of view, an inspiration, a 

 beautiful poem that I cannot write. 



This attitude of the nature-lover, because it is 

 contemplative and poetical, is not therefore mystical 



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