The Rambles of an Idler 



responding month of the preceding year, it has 

 been more a series of disappointments than of 

 realizations. I write these words without mis- 

 givings, and although, when the east wind was 

 most cruel, the wood-thrush sang in that ex- 

 alted strain that lifts us to a higher sphere. 

 This song of the wood-thrush is evidence of 

 near approach, in one direction, to perfection 

 and it is well so to be entertained by it that we 

 are blind to how short we fall of attainment in 

 others. 



One May, I recall, had but little to boast of, 

 and another, later, had less. Eighteen rainy 

 or cloudy or foggy days is an excess of pluvial 

 and allied conditions that would figure well in 

 Patagonian or Labradorian outings, but out of 

 place in Nature's remnant of Elysium, New 

 Jersey. 



And yet, — the signal of a sober second 

 thought — the catalogued phenomena of the 

 month has no missing pages, nor breaks in its 

 columns. The trees grew their leaves, plants 

 produced their flowers and the birds returned. 

 Search where we might, nothing was lacking 

 and yet we could not accept the offering as 

 May ; that is, as poets picture her. ' The trouble 



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