SEPTEMBER 



19 



Going along this old Carlisle road, ... I per- 

 ceived the grateful scent of the Dicksonia fern now 

 partly decayed. It reminds me of all up country, 

 with its springy mountain sides and unexhausted 

 vigor. . . . When I wade through by narrow cow- 

 paths, it is as if I had strayed into an ancient and 

 decayed herb garden. Nature perfumes her gar- 

 ments with this essence now especially. . . . The 

 very scent of it, if you have a decayed frond in 

 your chamber, will take you far up country in a 

 twinkling. You would think you had gone after 

 the cows there, or were lost on the mountains. 



THOKEAU: Autumn. 



2O 



We heard the sigh of the first autumnal wind, 

 and even the water had acquired a grayer hue. 

 The sumach, grape, and maple were already 

 changed, and the milkweed had turned to a deep, 

 rich yellow. In all woods the leaves were fast 

 ripening for their fall; for their full veins and 

 lively gloss mark the ripe leaf and not the sered 

 one of the poets ; and we knew that the maples, 

 stripped of their leaves among the earliest, would 

 soon stand like a wreath of smoke along the edge 

 of the meadow. 



THOREAU: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack 

 Rivers. 



