A MASQUE OF THE SEASONS 



burrow, and notes the slant of the sun's rays> 

 the rippling wash of waters by the lake, and 

 the flight of wild-fowl. Breast-high the reeds 

 swim, and the hills are bathed in molten light. 

 There is a hint of even greater change in occa- 

 sional tingling gusts that flatten the bulrushes 

 to the water and go whistling up the slopes 

 a menace to all this color and life and glow- 

 ing landscape. So drift the days, so runs the 

 world away. 



While autumn, like a sweet-faced, holy nun, 

 Shades with a trembling hand her sad brown eyes. 



And as the bleak winds scatter drifted 

 snow under the old apple-trees still another 

 dream is spun from nature's loom. How 

 still the lake is! a shield of dazzling white 

 with never a trace or sign of life above its 

 barriers. Under the snow lies the armor of 

 December, blue ice of sixteen inches, and be- 

 low that the imprisoned waters, locked in the 

 grasp of winter. Yet even now in the days 

 when the sun shines bold and free there will 

 be found color and form in the woods, by the 

 fence-corners, and along the banks of the 

 creek blackened reeds, some vagrant leaves 

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