BIRDS mV NftTURE. 



ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. 



Vol. XI. FEBUARY, 1902. No. 2 



FEBRUARY. 



But Winter has yet brighter scenes — he boasts 

 Splendors beyond what gorgeous summer knows; 

 Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods 

 All flushed with many hues. Come when the rains 

 Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice, 

 While the slant sun of February pours 

 Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! 

 The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps, 

 And the broad arching portals of the grove 

 Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks 

 Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray. 

 Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven, 

 Is studded with its trembling water-drops. 

 That glimmer with an amethystine light. 

 But round the parent-stem the long low boughs 

 Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide 

 The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot 

 The spacious cavern of some virgin mine. 

 Deep in the womb of earth — where the gems grow. 

 And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud 

 While amethyst and topaz — and the place 

 Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam 

 That dwells in them. * * * * 



—William Cullen Bryant, "A Winter Piece." 



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