118 East and West 
measure of the ruby kinglet’s song falling on 
the frosty air, that last reverie of the song- 
sparrow; who sees the silent hermit lurking 
in the spice-bush and the wahoo and later 
looks for him in vain; not he—but that nomad, 
that aboriginal man, who now wakes and 
renews himself and hears in the winds the 
irresistible call to depart. He it is who sees 
in his mind’s eye the open spaces, the lava 
peaks, the sunlit opal desert—ever beckoning; 
to whom the wild geese far above the lake 
in the chill grey sky seem to cry—Away! 
Away! Till one day he finds himself on 
that old trail where the mountains are red 
and yellow and the shimmering desert—the 
great free desert—waits for him. 
