they are bewitching and satisfying. Who knows not the sycamore is to 
be pitied? He has missed so much 
‘The pillared dusk of sounding sycamores,” 
of which the laureate sings, is not so beauty-burdened as the stately 
temple-pillars, lifting taper marble up as worthy for some Phidias to 
plant upon their Doric trunks some stately frieze wrought into pana- 
thenaic processions. Who would have thought of such a thing as a 
sycamore, save God only? 
“The birds and beasties '’ of winter woods are accessories not to be 
forgotten ‘Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang," 
are visible in plenty. In summer these nests were hid from the eyes ‘of 
the wise and prudent,’’ but now are open to everybody's gaze. There 
is no secrecy. In the leafless hedgcrow is the thrush’s nest, and down 
by the stream is the bluebird’s house, and the crow’s log-house of knotty 
and unworkmanlike construction is seen from the treetops. Crows are 
bold builders. They haunt treetops as swallows the eaves. These nests 
seem so ill-built that one would tumble down if a flapping wing of its 
own builder were to cuff it unwarily, but, as experience shows, are so 
sturdily constructed that all the winter's tempests leave them in good 
repair. These crows are deceiving folks. We thought they tumbled 
their houses together in an unworkmanlike fashion, when lo, we found 
they built against seasons and naked winters, and storm-wind's brow- 
beating. And the crow is in the winter woods. His Satanic blackness 
glares through the naked woods, and makes a sort of plaintive picture. 
He flies low over the trees of winter and settles often for caucus or 
religious meeting,—I really never have been able to tell which. But | 
am not his chaplain; so it makes not much matter. 
And the redbird flings himself through the network of branches, 
like a firebrand borne by daylight; and his whistle is always as from a 
cheery heart, The cardinal is warming to the eyes, and his carelessness 
of weather makes him to me fraternal. I defy weather, only asking 
that there be weather. The kind is not for me to say, seeing I am not 
the weather bureau; but some kind of weather, fair, foul, wintry, windy, 
quiet; snow, rain, sleet, are little odds to me; I enjoy them all, and go 
out in one with the same delight as in the other. Each has its impact 
with my spirit. The cardinal cheers himself not with the hope of spring 
coming, but with the delight of winter here. All seasons make love to 
him and he to all seasons; and when he flings his torch across the gray- 
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