AUTUMN. 117 



solemn stillness in these stately halls, in which your very footfall is pro- 

 scribed and hushed in the depths of the brown and silent carpet. There 

 are old, venerable gray-beards here, and fallen monarchs lying prostrate 

 among the rugged rocks ; and here and there among the brown debris 

 a fungus lifts its head, to tell of other generations that lie crumbling 

 beneath the mould. Now among the lofty columns, like a magnificent 

 illuminated window in some vast cathedral, comes a glimpse of the outer 

 world with its autumn colors ; and here the vaulted aisle soon leads us. 

 We find a dazzling contrast ; for in the sombre shadows of the pine-forest 

 one readily forgets the month, or even the season. Here we approach a 

 rippling trout-stream, and as we stop to rest upon its tottering bridge we 

 look across a long brook meadow, where the asters screen the ground 

 in mid-air in a purple sea — one of the rarest spectacles of autumn. But 

 in this swamp lot there are presented a continual series of just such rich 

 displays from spring-time till the winter. 



I know of no other place in which the progress of the year is so read- 

 ily traced as in these swampy fallow lands. They are a living calendar, 

 not merely of the seasons alone, but of every month successively ; and its 

 record is almost unmistakably disclosed. It is whispered in the fragrant 

 breath of flowers, and of the aromatic herbage you crush beneath your 

 feet. It floats about on filmy wings of dragon-fly and butterfly, or glistens 

 in the air on silky seeds. It skips upon the surface of the water, or 

 swims among the weeds beneath ; and is noised about in myriads of tell- 

 tale songs among the reeds and sedges. The swallows and the starlings 

 proclaim it in their flight, and the very absence of these living features is 

 as eloquent as life itself. Even in the simple story of the leaf, the bud, 

 the blossom, and the downy seed, it is told as plainly as though written 

 in prosaic words and strewn among the herbage. 



In the early, blustering days of March, there is a stir beneath the thaw- 

 ing ground, and the swamp cabbage-root sends up a well protected scout 

 to explore among the bogs ; but so dismal are the tidings which he brings, 

 that for weeks no other venturing sprout dares lift its head. He braves 

 alone the stormy month — the solitary sign of spring, save, perhaps, the 

 lengthening of the alder catkins that loosen in the wind. April woos the 

 yellow cowslips into bloom along the water's edge, and the golden willow 

 twigs shake out their perfumed tassels. In May the prickly carex blos- 

 soms among the tussocks, and the calamus buds burst forth among their 

 flat, green blades. June is heralded on right and left by the unfurling of 



