OCTOBER 



13 



The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, 

 Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, 



And hints at her foregone gentilities 

 With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves ; 



The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, 



Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, 

 As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves. 

 LOWELL: An Indian-Summer Reverie. 



14 



For beautiful variety no crop can be compared 

 with this. Here is not merely the plain yellow 

 of grains, but nearly all the colors that we know, 

 the brightest blue not excepted : the early blush- 

 ing maple, the poison-sumach blazing its sins as 

 scarlet, the mulberry ash, the rich chrome yel- 

 low of the poplars, the brilliant red huckleberry, 

 with which the hills' backs are painted, like those 

 of sheep. The frost touches them, and, with the 

 slightest breath of returning day or jarring of 

 earth's axle, see in what showers they come float- 

 ing down ! The ground is all party-colored with 

 them. 



THOKEAU: Autumnal Tints. 



