AUTUMN 



hardly resist brushing them with one's lips to see 

 if they are actually wet. 



Yet the maple which leans clear across the 

 brook is already crimson, and when we reach the 

 rocky hill-side the yellow fronds of the Dicksonia 

 exhale a subtle fragrance which suggests decay. 

 Another faint, elusive odor, starting a train of 

 equally elusive memories, floats upward from the 

 only flower at our feet, the " life-everlasting," 

 which, as children, I hardly know why, we always 

 associated with graves. Here, where there is 

 none of the life and freshness of the meadow be- Life-ever- 

 low, it seems to decorate the grave of summer. as mg 

 Dr. Holmes says concerning it : " A something 

 it has of sepulchral spicery, as if it had been 

 brought from the core of some great pyramid, 

 where it had lain on the breast of a mummied 

 Pharaoh. Something, too, of immortality in the 

 sad, faint sweetness lingering long in its lifeless 

 petals. Yet this does not tell why it fills my eyes 

 with tears, and carries me in blissful thought to 

 the banks of asphodel that border the " River of 

 Life." 



179 



