SIGNS OF AUTUMN 



SIGNS of autumn are not wanting in summer days, 



if we care to look for them, but we are never anxious EARLY AUGUST 



to note their appearance, any more than we are 

 willing to realise the meaning of those tiny but un- 

 mistakable signs of failing, in the white heads and 

 wrinkled hands of those dear to us. For then we 

 see that which we do not wish to see, we feel a 

 stab, a thrust something within us shrinks ; vainly 

 we hope and try to think it is not so. Alas ! in 

 that lightning flash we have read the whole page, 

 and though we hurriedly turn the leaf we cannot 

 forget. 



But these forewarnings of autumn should not 

 sadden us, Nature's harvest is a time when she yields 

 up her wealth, and, if she pauses after her bounty, it 

 is but to rest, to sleep and rise the stronger to give 

 again yet more. 



And so 'twas summer still when we saw T odd 

 yellow crests that flecked the rounded top of many a 

 hedge-row elm ; while sheltered underneath were the 



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