MARCH DAYS 



deep, perhaps, that your tracks are gray 

 puddles, marking your toilsome way. 



As you wallow on, or perch for a mo- 

 ment's rest on a naked fence-top among 

 the smirched drifts, you envy the crows 

 faring so easily along their aerial paths 

 above you. How pleasant are the voices 

 of these returning exiles, not enemies 

 now, but friendly messengers, bringing 

 tidings of spring. You do not begrudge 

 them the meagre feasts they find, the 

 frozen apple still hanging, brown and 

 wrinkled, in the bare orchard, or the win- 

 ter-killed youngling of flock or herd, cast 

 forth upon a dunghill, and which discov- 

 ered, one generous vagabond calls all his 

 black comrades to partake of. 



Watching them as they lag across the 

 sky, yet swifter than the white clouds 

 drift above them, you presently note that 

 these stand still, as you may verify by 

 their blue shadows on the snow, lying 

 motionless, with the palpitating shadows 

 of the crows plunging into them on this 

 side, then, lost for an instant in the blue 

 obscurity, then, emerging on that side 

 with the same untiring beat of shadowy 

 wings. A puff of wind comes out of the 

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