WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



I had heard the skylark far away, and faintly ; 

 but even so, it was one of the rewards of life. 



Behind me was a great cemetery where hun- 

 dreds of sombre figures moved silently amid pallid 

 marble and cold granite, or gathered here and there 

 into groups in whose midst, as I knew, were open 

 graves; and hearses, black and white, rolled back 

 and forth, followed by carriages filled with weep- 

 ing men and women, heedless now of the sunlight 

 and of a sky glowing like a hollowed sapphire. 



As I gazed from afar at this silent and piti- 

 ful spectacle of multiplied grief, suddenly there 

 came again to my ears to mine alone, on the edge 

 of that desolate throng the mystical, angelic an- 

 them of the lark, and, turning, I caught sight of 

 the singer. Forsaking the clods, he was winging 

 his way up, up, into the purity of the glistening 

 air, catching and reflecting its sheen as he rose, 

 his swiftly fluttering pinions scattering a gem-like 

 radiance a halo of light about him, his golden 

 beak raining down gems of melody. 



How he sang! now sinking, now gliding ahead, 

 now turning to the right or to the left, but ever 

 rising on tremulous wings by the very buoyancy 

 of his emotions, ever lifted upward by the exalta- 

 tion of his song. 



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