APRIL DAYS 



and catches a brighter gleam from the 

 unobstructed sunbeams. So befittingly 

 are the trees arrayed in graceful tracery 

 of spray and beads of purpling buds, 

 that their seemly nakedness is as beau- 

 tiful as attire of summer's greenness 

 or autumn's gorgeousness could make 

 them. 



Never sweeter than now, after the 

 long silence of winter, do the birds' 

 songs sound, and never in all the round 

 of the year is there a better time to see 

 them than when the gray haze of the 

 branches is the only hiding for their gay 

 wedding garments. 



If you would try your skill at still- 

 hunting, follow up that muffled roll that 

 throbs through the woods, and if you 

 discover the ruffed grouse strutting upon 

 his favorite log, and undiscovered by 

 him can watch his proud performance, 

 you will have done something better 

 worth boasting of than bringing him to 

 earth from his hurtling flight. 



Out of the distant fields come, sweet 



and faint, the call of the meadowlark 



and the gurgle of the blackbirds that 



throng the brookside elms. From high 



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