40 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



greater than even the author of their doing can 

 foresee. 



I look me down and see a chipmunk looking 

 up. Seated 30 feet below me on the root of a 

 maple he gazes at me unabashed, unperturbed. 

 What consciousness is his? Not that of dis- 

 content, for he measures not his months by 

 deeds undone, by longings unsatisfied. The 

 spirit of content beams forth from his eyes. 

 His stomach is full. His passions are dormant. 

 His eyes see not and his ears hear not an enemy 

 from which he must hide. Content is he to sit 

 and gaze, to bask on a tree root, to let time 

 go on, unknown, unmeasured, a part of an eter- 

 nity which ever was and ever will be. 



After dinner I spend an hour beneath the 

 oak in my front yard chewing the cud of mem- 

 ory, then read for the first time the "Rubaiyat 

 of Omar Khayyam" old Omar the Persian 

 poet of eight centuries and more agone. There- 

 in he sets forth in peculiar quatrain, of which 

 the first, second and fourth lines rhyme, the 

 same doctrines that so many believe and prac- 

 tice to-day namely, that there is no hereafter, 

 no to-morrow, therefore "eat, drink and be 

 merry for to-morrow you may die. ' ' 



"Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears 

 To-day of past regrets and future fears: 



To-morrow! Why, to-morrow I may be 

 Myself with yesterday's sev'n thousand years." 



