NOVEMBER 



27 



With mingled sound of horns and bells, 



A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, 



Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, 



Like a great arrow through the sky, 

 Two dusky lines converged in one, 

 Chasing the southward-flying sun ; 

 While the brave snowbird and the hardy jay 

 Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them 



WHITTIER: The Last Walk in Autumn. 



28 



I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the 

 pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing 

 from tree to tree. How securely he travels there 

 fifty feet from the ground, leaping from the slen- 

 der, bending twig of one tree across an interval of 

 three or four feet, and catching at the nearest twig 

 of the next, which so bends under him that it is 

 hard at first to get up. His traveling is a succes- 

 sion of leaps in the air at that height, without 

 wings 1 And yet he gets along about as rapidly 

 as on the ground. 



THOKEAU : Autumn. 



