100 PEP ACTON 



Where the whitest lilies blow, 

 Where the freshest berries grow, 

 Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 

 Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; 

 Of the black wasp's cunning way, 

 Mason of his walls of clay, 

 And the architectural plans 

 Of gray hornet artisans! " 



The poet is not as exact as usual when he applies 



the epithet "painted" to the autumn beeches, as the 



foliage of the beech is the least painty of all our 



trees; nor when he speaks of 



"Wind-flower and violet, amber and white," 



as neither of the flowers named is amber-colored. 



From "A Dream of Summer" the reader might 



infer that the fox shut up house in the winter like 



the muskrat : — 



" The fox his hillside cell forsakes, 

 The muskrat leaves his nook, 

 The bluebird in the meadow brakes 

 Is singing with the brook." 



The only one of these incidents that is characteris. 

 tic of a January thaw in the latitude of New Eng- 

 land is the appearance of the muskrat. The fox 

 is never in his cell in winter, except he is driven 

 there by the hound, or by soft or wet weather, and 

 the bluebird does not sing in the brakes at any time 

 of the year. A severe stress of weather will drive 

 the foxes off the mountains into the low, sheltered 

 woods and fields, and a thaw will send them back 

 again. In the winter the fox sleeps during the 

 day upon a rock or stone wall, or upon a snow- 

 bank, where he can command all the approaches, or 

 else prowls stealthily through the woods. 



