THE BREATH OF AUTUMN 
If April and May, as the old Spanish saw has it, are 
the keys of the year, then surely August might be said 
to figure as its golden coffer, open wide, and overflow¬ 
ing with a superfluity of treasure—the year’s richest, 
although, maybe, not of its best. It is almost as though 
the season were over-weighted with its own pomp, and 
moved to statelier rhythms—an imperial masquer, 
robed in cloth of gold that is stiff with gems, treading 
the grandiose measure of the pavane rather than the 
airy intricacies of gavotte or minuet. Opulence and 
majesty inform the present hour, touching it, as it were, 
to a certain solemnity—inevitable burden of wealth and 
state, even though the treasure be but this faery gold 
that early frosts shall wither and autumn mists dissolve. 
Now that the great summer silence has descended upon 
the garden, the robin is beginning his aubade to autumn ; 
but he does little more than practise it as yet, at 
intervals, now and again as the spirit moves him. 
Sweet and clear, almost as tuneless as the ripple of 
a stream or the sound of sheep-bells floating down from 
high hill pastures, is this limpid song that stirs you to 
a vague sense of melancholy as you listen. It is the 
self-same song that we shall hear over and over 
when ash-tree keys hang rusty on the boughs, and 
again, when boughs are bare, and low gold sunsets of 
the dying year shall be all that remain of its glories. 
We shall be grateful enough in those days for his 
shrill, pure notes, but, for the moment, one is almost 
