thicker with frost than barn roof in October, and when the berries ripen 

 to hang for the winter with their dull, coal-glow red and these frosts 

 still unmelted by this glowing heat, I watch the wonder and the beauty 

 of it with joy unconcealed. What is the sumac that God should lavish so 

 much glory on it? And at the last, before the fronds fall, sumacs build 

 their bonfires on the hills and keep them burning through many nights 

 and days, for with them as with good lives "at eventide it shall be 

 light;" for sumacs, which, as you watch them at sunset on a night, will 

 the next morning be naked as dull death, only beneath them is a bed of 

 living coals which shall soon be ashes. How the sumacs burn on this 

 hillside! In a pasture beside my path as I saunter down the ravine a 

 herd of calves lie under the shadow of a courteous elm (and has any 

 tree more courtesy of shade than the elm?) ruminating in their care- 

 free leisureliness which no creatures save the kine know. A crow 

 (quite alone) goes soaring aloft (crows seldom soar they fly, nor often 

 fly high; this crow is soaring, and far up) and I accost him (country 

 style, without introduction) with a hoarse "Ha, kha, caw," to which he 

 pays scant heed, though I think he deflects his course just a trifle to 

 see what manner of crow this free-mannered bird may be, and a little 

 later calls in his catarrhal voice (he should consult a specialist) "Ha, 

 ha, ha, kha! " and I am well repaid for my pertness. Here are no 



"Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves." 



Would there were. But violets are one with the spring that brought 

 them. 



I am come to where a clump of trees willow, hickory, walnut, elm, 

 oak with their fast-falling leaves carpet the grass, and hazels with gold 

 purses full of nuts lean tantalizingly near, and a runnel builds a toy bank 

 for a divan. Here I take mine ease at mine inn and break bread with 

 myself and watch the cattle going with their ample leisure down to the 

 spring to drink, and eying me with a quizzical "You are lost, and 

 who will find you?" and going on with never an offer of bovine help. 

 Meantime I sit and listen to leaf fall and catch the autumn-leaf per- 

 fumes and hear the moan of the winds passing through the tree tops 

 or curling the brown leaves in miniature fury, and while the wind makes 

 its music I read Keats's "Ode to the Nightingale." Maurice Thompson 

 was right in saying this ode should be read out of doors, and I shall 

 add, as my contribution to his advice, it should be read Out-of-Doors 

 and in autumn. To-day is the day. The poem has the odors of leaf 



171 



