APPLE ORCHARD IN FULL FRUIT 111 
Rubicon but had stepped into the brook of a 
setting day to cross to a day all wonder and wist- 
fulness and invitation to my soul. So the evening 
preachment ended and the Christian good-bys 
said, we betook us to the journey to the apple 
orchard in full fruit, hurrying through the starry 
dark whence the moon had vanished and where 
perfume of fallen leaves nigh made the spirit 
swoon as under the song of the nightingale. 
I am confirmed in the belief that the gadfly 
which stung Io was the gadfly of beauty which 
must be told. Capable or incapable no matter, 
beauty whispers in insistent whispers “Attempt.” 
However humble the perceiver of the beautiful, 
the peremptory voice prompts: “Say it. Tell the 
scene. Make no delay.” 
“Grandly begin; though thou have time 
But for one line, be that sublime,” 
said Poet Lowell while the summons of the sun- 
rise and the stars and great deeds marching 
with running march to death crushed about his 
soul like reverberating thunderbolts. With us 
lesser men and women the summons is the same. 
We seem not to have a choice. It must be told. 
There are not enough to tell this tale, wherefore 
all poets rise to the voice and write. It will be 
perfectly clear that this writer is well aware 
how inapposite his attempted endeavor and 
wishes to bow himself from the stage before the 
hissing at his hardihood accelerates his departure. 
