AUTUMN 209 



Nothing but the wind sweeping through the yellow 

 bents with a long scythe-like sound, rising in gusty 

 moments to a loud sharp hiss. 



On such a day of silence and desolation a remem- 

 brance of the late summer has come back suddenly 

 like a lightning-flash to my mind, with such startling 

 vividness as to affect me powerfully. A vision of the 

 vanished insect life that a little while ago covered 

 these green flowering hills. I moved and had my 

 being amid that life as in a golden mist spread over 

 the earth ; my ears were full of the noise of innumer- 

 able fine small voices blending into one voice ; where- 

 soever I looked their minute swift- moving bodies 

 appeared as thin dark lines on the air and over the 

 green surface. Forms so infinitely varied, yet so won- 

 derfully fashioned, each aglow with its complete sepa- 

 rate life, and all in harmony with all life and all 

 nature, responsive in a million secret springs to each 

 and every external influence ; so well balanced in their 

 numerous parts and perfect in their equipment, so 

 intense in their lives as to seem fitted to endure for 

 ever. And now in so short a time, in a single day 

 and night as it seems, it is all over, the feast and fairy- 

 dance of life ; the myriads of shining gem-like bodies 

 turned to dead dust, the countless multitude of bril- 

 liant little individual souls dissipated into thin air and 

 blown whithersoever the wind blows ! 



The first and inevitable effect of such a thought, 



when the tremendous tragedy of the passing year is 



o 



