AUTUMN. 121 



weaves his silken shroud, and awaits the coming of his day of full per- 

 fection. In the ground beneath he seeks his sepulchre, and he knows 

 that at the appointed time he will burst his cerements and fly away. 

 These are inobtrusive, silent testimonies ; but they are here, and need 

 only to be sought to unfold their prophecies. 



But there comes a respite even in these late gloomy days. There is 

 a lull in the work of devastation, in which the sunny skies and magic 

 haze of October come back to us in the charming dreaminess of the 

 Indian summer. A brief farewell — perhaps a day, perhaps a week; but 

 however long, it is a parting smile that we love to recall in the dreari- 

 ness that follows. The sky is luminous with soft sun-lit clouds, and the 

 hazy air is laden with spring-like breezes, with now and then a welcome 

 cricket-song or light-hearted bird-note, for, although long upon their way, 

 the birds have not yet all departed. They twitter cheerily among the 

 trees and thickets, and should you listen quietly you perhaps might hear 

 an echo of spring again in the warble of the robin upon the dog-wood- 

 tree. Here they have loitered by the way among the scarlet berries. 

 Not only robins, but cedar -birds and thrushes are here, in successive 

 flocks, from morn till night. 



The fields are dull with faded golden-rods and asters, among; whose 

 downy seeds the frolicking chickadees and snow-birds hold a jubilee. 

 The maze of twigs and branches in the distant hills has enveloped 

 them in a smoky gray, and the sound of rustling leaves follows your foot- 

 steps in your woodland rambles. The fringe of yellow petals is unfold- 

 ing on the witch-hazel boughs, and if you only knew the place, you might 

 discover in some forsaken nook a solitary pale-blue lamp of fringed gen- 

 tian still flickering amons the withered leaves. Now a lively twittering 

 and a hum of wings surprises you, and before you can turn your head a 

 happy little troop of birds sweep across your path, and are away among 

 the evergreens. They are white buntings, and their presence here is like 

 a chill, for they come from the icy regions of the North, and they bring 

 the snow upon their wings. The Indian summer is soon a thing of the 

 past. Perhaps before another daybreak it will have flown. There is no 

 dawn upon that morning. The night runs into a day of dismal, cheerless 

 twilight, and the sky is overcast with ominous darkness. That angry 

 cloud that left us, driven away before the conquering Spring, now lowers 

 above the northward mountain ; we see its livid face and feel its blight- 

 ing breath — "a hard, dull bitterness of cold," that sweeps along the moor 



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