The Lay of he Band 
enough were we able to stop, to lie down under 
a tree for the hour, unwearied, wide-awake, and 
still. 
We can be glad with the spring, sad with the 
autumn, eager with the winter; but it is hard for us 
to go softly, to pause, to be still, complete, sufficient, 
full with the full, sufficient summer; to hang poised 
and expanded like the broad-winged hawk yonder far 
up in the wide sky. 
But the hawk is not still. The shadow of my oak 
begins to lengthen. The hour is gone. even while it 
comes, for wavering softly down the languid air falls 
a yellow leaf from a slender gray birch near by. I 
remember, too, that on my way through the woodlot 
I frightened a small flock of robins from a pine; and 
more than a week ago the swallows were gathering 
upon the telegraph wires. It was springtime even 
yesterday; to-day there are signs of autumn every- 
where. Perhaps, after all, there is no such time as 
summer, — no pause, no rest, no quiet in the fields, 
no hour of noon. 
Yet I get something out of the fields, these slum- 
berous July days, that is neither of springtime nor of 
autumn, a ripening, mellowing, quieting something, 
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