OUTDOORS 



need to take heed for the future. When the 

 cold winds come, and the surface of the lake 

 is shining emerald and the land is wrapped 

 in white blankets of finest snows he will be 

 in the Land of Nod, dreaming of days when 

 no blight is on the earth and there is no lack 

 of leaf and blossom. And so, careless of the 

 dying year, and knowing only of sun and 

 shower, bud, flower, and waving grass, the 

 woodchuck poises by his burrow; a graven 

 monk whose winter of discontent never comes ; 

 but who loses sight of the last blade of grass 

 that October's banners flourish, as he descends 

 into his earthy cloister for the winter, to find 

 it again in the rumpled, tossing tresses of the 

 spring, as his brown muzzle reconnoitres, for 

 the first time in the new year, the old remem- 

 bered landscapes. 



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