The Plant's Response 193 



speare in A Winter's Tale and in his glorious sonnets, 

 Wordsworth and Tennyson throughout, all have dis- 

 covered and declared this indefinable response of the 

 world of leaf and bloom to the unuttered moods and pas- 

 sions of the human soul. Emerson, perhaps, in a line or 

 two puts the case more simply, more boldly than any, 

 saturated as he is with the poetry of the forest and of 

 the book of books. 



1 ' When I 'm stretched beneath the pines, 

 And the evening star so holy shines, 

 I laugh at the wit and pride of man, 

 At the sophist schools and the learned clan, 

 For what are they all, in their high conceit, 

 When a man with God in a bush may meet?" 



But all this lies outside the bounds of present science. 

 Is it summer now? Once more the web of life is weav- 

 ing: the robin once again sits perched upon his cherry 

 tree; men and women go forth, go forth to labor, for 

 robin as for man the shuttle flies unseen. Or is it 

 autumn now ? There is a haze above the river ; a thinner 

 sunlight smiles on wooded aisles, the poets and the chil- 

 dren on the earth go once more up and down, gathering 

 the tinted leaves, with meanings and responses that they 

 at least can understand! 



