White Stars Here And There In Galaxies Over The Ground, Misty And Nebulous From A Distance. Occasionally I Came Upon A Precocious Spray Of Dutchman'S-Breeches, Or Wild Bleedingheart, Hung Frailly With Delicately Transparent Shell-Like Blossoms. The Virginia Cowslip Was Also Putting Forth Its Tufts Of Heaven-Blue, Belfried Bells, Seemingly, That Call The Fairies To Prayer. The Leaves, Adder-Mottled, Of The Dog'S Tooth Violet Speared The Loam Here And There, A Myriad Brown-Blotted Beaks Of Green. Not A Wood Violet Did I See. The Spicewood With Its Yellow Buds And The Red-Bud With Its Purplish Blooms Gave Or Loaned Color To The Drab Background Of The Yet Unleafing Brush And Trees. A Proletarian, Bent On Gathering Early Honey, On Filling His Fairy Sack, The Bulky Bee Went Booming By. I Stopped A Moment To See Him Rumble And Tumble Among The Pussy-Willows In A Little Hollow, Green-Spread With A Grassy Carpet Patterned With Wildflowers, Smelling Of Honeyed Musk, Like The Fragrant Dressing-Room Of Spring. April 27Th, 1901. The Expanding Sheaths Of The Leaves Of The Liriodendron, Or Tulip Tree, Are Like Pale Velvety Green Fingers, Umber-Tipped, Pointing Heavenward Or Is It To Passing April, Or Approaching May? They Are Covered With An Adhering And Balsamic Gum, Giving Them A Varnished Golden Appearance. More Truly Speaking They Are Of A Silvery, Fuzzy Golden Appearance But What Words Can Describe Adequately Or Impart Perfectly The Impression Of The Colors Which Spring Employs In Painting Her Young Leaves And Her Flowers? And There Are The Cherry Trees! What Wonders, What Marvels Of Whiteness! Black-Heart And White-Heart Heaping Their Huge Drifts Of Snowy Blossoms. I Never Beheld Anything More Beautiful Than Are These Beautiful Trees This Spring. Their Odorous Snow Intoxicates The Air And Ravishes The Senses; Bee, Bird, And Breeze Make Their Great Mounds, Like Motionless Clouds Anchored To Earth, Murmurous And Revelous Haunts Of Melody. Near A Pond A Maple Tree Stands Crimson As If Autumn Had Touched It With Fiery Finger, Instead Of Spring; Giving Flame To Its Numberless Dangling Double-Winged Keys Or Seed Pods, Out Of Whose Rosy Clusters The Pearly Points Of The Sprouted Leaves Project Tips Of Tiny Candles That Will Soon Glow With Emerald Green. The Whole Tree Gives One The Impression Of A Flaming Torch, But Burning From The Bottom Upwards Instead Of From The Top Downwards. I Catch The Fragrance Of The Blossoms Of The Plum Tree Now Which Is Exactly That Of New-Made Wine, A Heliotrope And Vanilla-Like Odor. No Wonder That The Bees And The Butterflies Are Intoxicated With It And Go Reeling Away In Honeyed Happiness After Revelling In Its Blossoms A While. The Fragrance Of The Plum Trees Vies With That Of The Cherry Trees. Nothing That I Ever Smelled Is So Delicately, So Deliciously Intoxicating As Is Their Mingled Perfume, Borne By That Great Mixer The Wind, From Their Masses Of White Bloom, In Which The Inebriate Bees And Breezes Make Perpetual Murmur, And The Birds Drown Themselves, Their Songs Rising, Like Bubbles, From Their Fragrant Deeps. The Lush Green Smell Of The Young Grass, Cool And Warm At The Same Time, Invites One To Rest And Dream On Its Emerald Carpet. The Blackbird'S Continual, Vibrant, Wire-Like, Metallic Note Creaks And Creaks In The Top Of A Sweet-Gum Tree Like A Rusty Reed Tuned In Praise Of Spring. Here In The Damp Places Of The Wood And The Shadowy Parts Of The Orchard One Comes Frequently Upon The Succulent Cones Of The Sponge Mushroom, The Earliest Edible Fungus Of The Year. On The Hillside, In The Woods, The Dwarf Larkspur, A Watery Blue And White, Bristles With Spurry Spikes Of Blossoms. This Spot Of Deadened Wood And Stumps Is A Regular Rallying Place For Them. I Stop A Moment, Seating Myself Upon A Dead Tree Trunk. How Curious Are The Worm-Worn Borings Under The Torn-Off Bark Of A Fallen And Red-Rotted Tree! Hieroglyphic And Crooked And Erratic As The Lines That Mark, I Imagine, Some Antique Gem Of Arabia, The Seal Of Some Long-Dead Sultan. "The Noon Was Clouded, Yet No Shower Fell Though In Her Lids Hung The Sweet Tears Of May." May Is Here. The Red Oak Crimsons Into Tenderly Velvet Leaves, And The White Oak Clothes Itself In Vair And Mauve And Lavender And Rose. The Indefinable, Bittersweet, Apple Fragrance Of The Wild-Crab Blossoms Makes Every Wind Swoon With Joy. No Perfume Cultivated By Fashion Is More Refined Or Subtly Haunting Than Is This Wild-Apple Odor With Which The May Makes Sweet Her Body. May 15Th, 1901. Came Upon An Entire Hillside Of The Bird'S-Foot Violet. Their Pansy-Purple Blossoms, Scattered Like Sapphires Among The Moss And Dead Leaves Under The Soft Unfolding Velvet Of The Oaks, Made A Picture Too Beautiful For Words To Describe. I Carried The Memory Of It Home To The City With Me And It Has Remained With Me Ever Since. How Curious Looking Are The Curdled Mud Chimneys That The Crawfish Mason In The Wet Woods And Clayey Fields! Lying At The Bottom Of The Hole Which Their Chimney Continues And Protects, Their Great Claws Advanced Threateningly Before Them, They Remind Me Of Some Unimaginable Monster Of The Fairy World; Some Elfin Dragon Or Kraken, Lying In Wait For Venturesome, Lost, Or Belated Fairykins, Ready To Seize Them With Their Formidable Talons Andinstantly Devour. In The Deeps Of The Marshwood, At Night, I Have Heard Him Heaving Up His Hollow House, The Rude Wallof His Oozy Tower, A Wet, Vague Sound Of Slime. How The Various Sounds Of Nature Haunt Our Memories! To-Day, Mid-May, Standing Listening To The Rustling Of The Leavesof These Trees, I Cannot Help Thinking How Different Now Is The Sound Of The Movement Of Their Limbs, Clothed In Green, From What It Was In February When, Unwieldy And Weighed Down With Crushing And Incasing Sleet, Blown Stiffly By The Wind, The Crystalline And Crackling Noise Of Their Branches Was As The Sound Of Heavily Moving Silk. In Georgia, May 7Th, 1902. Who Was It Said Was It Lorenzo The Magnificent? Or Who? "That On Every Side We Find Absence, As Men Say, Estranges; Fancy Ranges As The Eye Ranges; Out Of Sight Is Out Of Mind. "Love Departs And Is Not Love; As From Sight The Eye Departs Even So Do Hearts From Hearts; And At Other Hands We Prove "Fancies Rove As The Eyes Rove, Parted Pleasures Come Again." And To Me Twofold They Come Here In Beautiful May In Beautiful Georgia! Here You Might Truthfully Say The Brooks Babble Silver Over Bars Of Pearl And Topaz, Or Drop Lucid Music Into Pools Basined With Crystal, For Their Very Channels Are Paved With Blocks And Pebbles Of Spar. Their Banks, Covered With Ferns As High, And Often Higher Than A Man'S Waist, Lean Over To Admire The Reflection Of Their Own Adornments, Glories Of Mountain Laurel, With Its Calico-Like Clusters Of Blossoms, Azaleas, Sunset-Colored, And Wild Honeysuckle, Rose And Cream, That Mass Themselves Everywhere. The Calicanthus And Solomon'S-Seal, Bird'S-Foot Violet, Great Pools, As It Were, Of Purple And Azure Poured From Some Huge Cornucopia Of Color, And The Wild Phlox, Streaking The Vistas Of Woods Here And There With Broad Lines Of Lavender, Seemingly Bouquet The Earth With Blossoms In Honor Of The Loveliest Month Of Spring. And Over It All The Wood-Thrush, That Liquid-Throated Lover Of The Leaves, Pipes His Mellowest, His Most Triumphant Music, As If He, Too, Would Give Her Praise May, And Lay His Soul In Song At Her Feet, Heralding Her Presence To Every Breeze That Blows, And To Every Tree And Wild Flower That Grows, In Notes As Deep And Crystal-Cool And Clear As Her Own Eyes. Visited A Whippoorwill'S Nest To-Day, May 30Th; One That I Discovered About A Week Ago. The Mother Bird Rose, Fluttering Almost From Under My Feet, And Had I Not Known Just Where To Look For Them, I Never Would Have Been Able To Distinguish Between The Two Little, Light, Red-Brown Balls Of Hairy Down And The Dead Oak Leaves On Which They Lay, Almost Completely Concealed By The Parent Bird, Before She Quit Her Nest, Under Two Brown Leaves. Quietly The Two Little Grotesques Lay, About A Day Old, With Tightly Closed Eyes, Huddled Side To Side, Among The Sere Leaves. I Carefully Recovered Them With The Two Brown Leaves, And To The Relief Of Their Parent, Who Kept Up A Continual Fluttering Among The Neighboring Underbrush Left Them To Become, Doubtless In Time, Like Herself, Weird Voices Of The Dusk, Haunters, Too, Of The Twilight. Circled With Trees, In Indiana, I Came Upon A Water, A Forest Pool, And Sat An Hour Looking Into It. Now And Then I Saw Was It A Turtle? Or Merely Some Strange Water Creature Conjured Up By My Imagination? A Spraddle-Legged, Shell-Backed Shadow Ferrying Slowly Through The Cairngorm Deeps. Then A Little Waggle-Tailed Frog Or Was It A Frog? Or A Fairy Philosopher Regarding Me Through His Goggle Eye-Glasses? Seated On A Lily Pad, Addressed Me In A High, Piping Voice, Like A Professor Delivering A Lecture, Here And There Others Took Up His Note, Like A Lot Of Mimicking Students, Bandying It Back And Forth Raucously High Or Low, According To Their Size. Most Of Them Were Still Very Young; In The Transitional Stage Between Tadpole And Frog And With Their Bass Or Tenor Voices Reminded Me Very Much Of An Apollo Club, In Swallow-Tailed Suits, Giving A Full-Dress, Batrachian Concert, Each Crouching Gnome-Like On His Lily-Leaf Platform. When I Moved They Plunged Precipitately Into The Pond, Spattering The Lily Pads With Rolling And Glittering Rounds Of Liquid Brilliants Diamonds Spilled On Emerald Mats. Among These Green, Spectacled Haunters Of The Pool, Gnarled Gnomes Of The Water, That Meditate Magic Each One In His Own Sorcerous Circle Of Green Lily Leaf; In A Shadowy Place, Under A Trailing Trumpet-Vine, A Riot Of June, Clustered Over, As It Were, With Splashes Of Tubular Scarlet, There Was An Old Frog Sat On A Log In The Light Of The Crescent Moon, Aboon, In The Light Of The Pale New Moon: And He Said To The Crescent, "My Dear, Look Pleasant! I'M Going To Sing You A Tune, Real Soon; I Am Going To Sing You A Tune." The Acrid, Warm Odor Of The Fields Of White-Top And Wild Carrot Lay Like A Spell Upon The Land. Noon Hummed And Buzzed, Grasshopper-Like, At The Wood'S Edge, Or Drowsily Whistled, Like A Bob-White, From The Harvest Field, That Slept, Sultry With Sunshine, In The Heavy, Hot Fragrance Of The Blossoming Elder; Pelted With Petals, And The Downy Pearl Blossoms Of The Flowering Chestnut Tree, That Fell In Long Splashes Of White, Slenderly Curved, As From A Pale-Towering, Never-Falling Fountain. So Let Noon Lead Me Till At Last She Reaches That Spot Where Evening Tarries Brown Beneath The Trees, Through Which The Sunset Bleaches; Deep In A Wood Of Ancient Oaks And Beeches, Where I May Lay Me Down, With All The Loveliness That Nature Teaches, And Watch Night Crown Her With Her Starry Crown. Violet Mists Of The Rain Veiling With Vapor The Distant Hills And Valleys, Checkered Here And There With Great Blurs And Streaks Of Interchanging Sunlight And Shadow As The Dark Blue Clouds Of Wind And Rain Roll Heavily Over Them. The Woods And Ways Are Literally Spangled With Butterflies Of All Descriptions, Colors, Sizes, And Shapes: Small And Large; Brown And Moth-Mottled With Dim And Dusty Blues And Blacks; Terracotta-Colored And Copper-Marked; Scarlet And Seal And Gold, Making Gay The Stalks Of Withered Weeds As With A Sudden, A Magic Burst Of Strange And Tropical Blossoms. The Catbird Says " Sweet You, Sweet You, Sweet You! Very Sweet You, You, You! Sweet, Sweet!" Nature Is Full Of Voices; Some Heard; Some Unheard; All Of Them Eloquent Of Loveliness, Happy Or Melancholy, Preaching Or Singing The Gospel Of The Beautiful. Yesterday, Walking In The Woods Of Autumn, The Wind Kept Up A Continual Whispering Around Me, As If Desirous Of Commuicating Some Old And Awful Trouble To My Soul. When It Discovered That I Could Not Or Would Not Understand, It Cried Angrily In The Trees, Withering Through The Sere, Red, Restless Oaks, Complaining To Them Of Something Sadder Than Life. The Witch-Faced Moon Of Day Looked Down Upon The Faded Forest Like The Ghost Of Old Tragedy Weary Unto Wonder. The Smoky, Dun, And Drab-Colored Woodlands, That Belted The Hill, Lifted Up Imploring Arms Of Ashen Branches, As If Beseeching Heaven To Spare Them; The Sunlight Of The Afternoon Piercing Them With Its Chilly Gold In Broad Gray Blades Of Mournful And Dusty-Looking Light. Nemophilist That I Am, I Also Am A Lover Of The Fields, Of The Meadows; Especially After A Night Of Rain When The Clean Green Of The Autumn Fallows Is Dotted With The Meadow Mushrooms, Holding Up, Each One, Its White Pileus, Like Parasols Of The Elves, Ribbed With Delicate Pink Gills. And When Above The Hills The Sunset'S Rolled One Long Deep Streak Of Lurid Gold, From The Nemorous Side Of A Hill, Over The Waving Plumes Of Goldenrod And Aster, I Have Often Fancied I Could See, In Lamels Of Refulgent Armor, The Eidolon Of The Autumn Day Beckoning Me On To Follow, Over The Glittering Meadows, Into Some Wonder World Of Mystery And Magic, Towering, Shadowy Gold And Fire, Beyond The Sunset'S Clouds And Mists Of Purple And Flame. March 17Th, 1903. For The First Time This Year, Here In Kentucky, To-Day I Heard The Hylodes Piping In The Marshy Places: Those Elfin Music-Makers Of March, Fairy Horn-Blowers Heralding The Approach Of Spring. A Myriad Golden-Thighed Honeybees, With One Great Black Bumblebee, Burly And Crapulous Choragus Of The Bacchic Chorus, Were Zooming And Booming Among The Fluffy, Furry Catkins Of The Willows That Hung, A Green-Gold Mist, Along The Borders Of A Stream; The Fragrance And Honey Of The Pussy-Willows Had Made Boisterous Bacchantes Of Them All. The Chortling Orchestration Of The Hylodes; The Warbling Of The Bush-Sparrow In Tufting Cottonwoods; The Violet, Breaking Azure Over The Sod; The Moist Spring Smell Of The Fresh New Grass, And Glimmer Of The Catkins, Combined To Form A Symphony Of Sounds, Aromas, And Colors That No Man-Made Music Could Ever Equal. Cobwebs, Iridescent In The Sunlight, Streamed By, The Tattered And Rent Remnants Of The Banners Of Elfdom, Caught Here And There On The Withered Weeds Of Last Year: Or Shimmered In Broken Arches, The Gossamer Bridges Of Fairyland; Or Floated Slowly Away In Torn Shreds, Shattered Rainbows Of The Fays. The Cottonwoods' Blooms Made The Winds Haunting And Balsam-Sweet, Smelling Like The Balm-Of-Gilead, And Sonorous With The Joy Of A Thousand Busy Honey-Bees. March 18Th, 1903. Wildflowers, Everywhere, Up In Profusion. Within A Few Feet Of Each Other I Found Anemones, Spring-Beauties And Wood-Violets Blooming, And The Adder'S-Tongue, Or Dog'S-Tooth Violet, Showing Its Brown-Freckled Leaf. The Trees Were Perfect Clerestories For The Birds, Whence The Bluebird, The Robin, The Wren, Sap-Sucker, Sparrow, Catbird And Redbird Chorused Their Songs, To Which The Meadowlark, Like A Priest Before The Altar Celebrating The High Mass Of Spring, Antiphoned Responses. Suddenly, In A Shadowy Opening Of The Trees, I Glimpsed The Bluebell, Or Virginia Cowslip, Its Porcelain-Like, Purple-Pink Heads Of Clustered Buds Bowing Heavily Over The Lush Green Stem Of Greener Leaves Promises Of Beauty That The Month, A Week Hence, Shall Behold Perfect And Blushing Beneath The Million Leaf-Points Of The Beeches. A Little Further On, In A Hollow Of Sodden Loam And Leaf The Bloodroot Lifted Its Virgin Chalices Of Hollow Snow, Making The Moist, Musk-Haunted Aisles Of The Cathedral-Like Forest Holy With Its Pale, Lamp-Like Flowers The Spiritual Presences, As It Were, Of Many Little Sangraals. Or Here A Clumped Colony Of The Twin-Leaf, Hardly Distinguishable From The Bloodroot, Immaculate, With Sloping, White, Half-Open Blossoms, Tapered Through The Enfolding Leaves Like Frail Candles Of Souls Celebrating The Advent Of Spring. The Bloodroot Leaves Of Middle March Lift Up Their Blooms, Each One A Torch Of Creamy Crystal In Whose White The Calyx Is A Golden Light. March 23Rd, 1903. The Toothwort, With Its White, Four-Petaled Flowers, Variegates, Along With The Spring-Beauty, The Floor Of The Forest Under The Bourgeoning Beeehes: Amid Their Delicate Enameling, A Solitary Star, One Dog'S-Tooth Violet Mosaics Its Pearl-Pallid Blossom; A Stray From The Innumerable Host That, Like Some Invasion, Pierces And Spears The Shady Hillside With Countless Bronze-Speckled Points Of Leaves. A Storm Is Rising. The Bare Boughs Roar And Tumult With The Rushing Winds Of March. The Phalanxes Of Dead Leaves Panic Before It In Galloping Skeleton Thousands, Rustling Wildly In Withered Flight. Winds, Vaunt Couriers Of The Clouds That Roll Up In Black Battalions, Sweep The Booming Boughs, Announcing Terrific Things To The Reeling Trees, Whose Tops Bow Down And, Billowing, Swirl And Swing, Doing Obeisance To The Storm. And Now The Full Force Of The Tempest Is Among Them; Ruin-Footed It Stalks With Enormous Strides, Crashing And Clashing Their Rumbling Trunks Together As If They Were So Many Reeds. There Is A Noise As Of Hurling And Hurrying Hands, The Trampling Of Gigantic Feet, The Roaring Of Riven Oak, Of Rended Beech, Ponderous, Protesting, In Terrified And Awful Pain, Sounding Hugely Over It All, Over The Wild Roar And Wilder Rush Of Rain. March 26Th, 1903. The Amber-Green Of The Sassafras Blossom Glints In The Sunlight, Tufting With Flame The Dark And Leafless Boughs, And Drenching The Air With Subtle And Spicy Fragrance. The Wild-Bleeding-Heart, The Harbinger Of Spring, The Anemone, Yellow And Blue Violets, Spring-Beauty, Bloodroot, Hepatica, And The Budded Pendants Of The Bluebells Enamel The Wood Floor With White And Gold, Pink And Azure. Here Also The Starry Eyes Of The Adder'S-Tongue, Bashful As A Little Puritan'S, Look Demurely Down. And The Celandine-Poppy Scatters Its Nuggets Of Early Gold Prodigally Among The Underwoods, Or Employs Its Natural Alchemy To Cover With Ingots Of Young Yellow The Trickling Hillside, Gleaming Here And There Amid The Dead Leaves And Mossy Rocks Like Croppings Out Of Unmined Gold, Of Secret Wealth No Man Hath Told. Moist, Rocky Places Of The Spring, Rich With Dark Woodland Loam, Where Hosts Of Golden Poppies Cling And Breaks The Bloodroot'S And The Twinleaf'S Foam. The Mossy Hillside'S Bulging Rocks O'Er Which The Fragile White-Heart Flocks, Whose Penciled Leaves And Shell-Shaped Blooms Seem Fancies From The Fairies' Looms. The Hairy Stems Of The Hepatica, Beneath The Wahoo-Bush And Leafing Haw, Nod Delicate As The Heads Of Elfin Maids Of Fairy Tales Who Haunt The Forest Glades; And Bluets, Like A Naiad'S Eyes Adream, Assert Their Azure By The Woodland Stream; And, Where The Wind-Flower Braved The Winds Of March, The Poppy Lights Its Golden Torch. Come Dance, Come Flaunt Yourselves, Ye Wild Little Wind-Flowers Of March! And, Poppies, Come Light Their Way With The Hollow Gold Of Your Torch! March 31St, 1903. The Mole-Heaved Turf That Smells Of Spring; The Gummy Gold And Green And Balm-Of-Gilead Scented Leaf-Buds Of The Cottonwoods, Shelling Their Crisp Cusps, Blown Hither And Thither By The Wind Of Late March, Languor The Air With Indescribable Essence That Softly Weighs Upon One'S Eyelids, Soothing Them To Sleep. I Lie Beneath A Great Cottonwood By The Ohio, Gazing At The Sky Through Its Boughs And Breathing The Essence Of Spring Distilled From The Breeze-Swung Censers Of Its Blossoms, Crimson Turning To Gold-Gray, Tasselling The Huge Room Of Its Branches. The Curled Bronze And Black, As If Burned, Sticky With Aromatic Gum, Of The Leaf-Bud Sheaths Scatter The Sand And The Young Grass On Which I Lie. April 6Th, 1903. Great White-Heart Cherry Trees Drifted With Snow Of Blossoms And Pelting The Passer-By With Flying Flakes Of Petals. The Buckeye Tree, The Great Horse-Chestnut, Is A Huge Candelabrum Of Leafbuds, Each Bud A Point Of Fragrant Bronze Infolding Pale Gold, A Compact And Imprisoned Flame, Gummy And Glistening With Spring And Sap In The Sunlight Of Early April. The Balsam-Pungent Smell Of The Leaf-Cusps Of The Cottonwoods Resembles Spice Blown From The Lattices Of Oriental Harems. Not"Blossom By Blossom" Does Spring Begin Here, But With A Rush, A Very Tempest Of Blossoms. Gill-Over-The-Ground, Dentaria, Starwort, Golden Corydalis, Mettensia, Celandine, Trillium, Wake-Robin And Bluet, Regiment On Regiment, Host On Host, Literally Storm The Bewildered Woodlands With Their Blossoms. High Among Them, Like A Purple Oriflamme, Flutter The Violet Clusters Of The Jacob'S-Ladder. April 8Th, 1903. The Lepidoptera Some Very Large, Some Very Small, Black And Brown And Blue, Make The Judas-Tree, With Its Cloud Of Rosy Blossoms, A Little World Of Flutter And Of Frenzy. By Goes A Great Dragonfly, The First Of The Season, Like A Bolt From A Cross-Bow. Everywhere Is The Mirth, The Babble And Bubble, The Gurgle And Whisper Of Woodland Waters, Mingled With The Jubilation Of Birds And The Clapping Of Leaf-Hands, The Contented Rubbing Together Of Rustling Boughs And Branches As If In Applause. I Came Into A Wind-Torn Wood Of Oaks, Over Whose Rocky And Rooty Floor, Sparsely Scattered, Shone The First Wan Stars Of The Bluets, And Whiter Than Blurs Of Frost, The Blossoms Of The White Wild-Plantain. Oaks, Oaks, All Around Me Oaks, Donning Their Velvet Vestments Of Pink And Purple And Gold The Young, Unfolding Leaves And Yet Unblossoming Buds, Long And Silken, Of Their Clustered Flowers. Far Off, From The Valley Below, Rose A Vague Chirping, The Reedy Notes Of The Hylodes, Like An Orchestra Of Fairy Flutes Tuned In Time To The Swift Steps Of Spring. Their Music, Suggestive To Me Of Pale Gray, Glaucous Golden Bubbles Blown All In The Same Direction By The Wind, Now Rose, Now Fell, With Every Passing Breeze. Through The Satiny Amber And Lavender And Rose Mists Of The Leafing Oaks, Tasselled With Golden-Green Of Blossoms, The Occasional Dogwoods Showed Brownish Blurs Of Buds Trying To Be White. And Against A Dark Background Of Leafless Woods The Sassafras, Breaking Into Chrysoprase, Gleamed Glassy Golden. The Hillside And The Valley Seemed Streaked And Blotted With Ochre And Umber, Grayish Green And Violet, Dim Lilac And Amber Hues, Where Spring Had Touched The Winter-Washed Boughs Of The Woodlands. And Climbing The Hills And Invading The Hollows, Clothed In The Colors Of Happiness, Like Attendants In Her Rosy Train, Peach Orchard And Cherry Orchard Glowed In Raiment Of Pink And Pearl. April 27Th, 1903. The Early, Dusty Gray-Green Of The Budded Birch Has Been Succeeded By A Glistening And Glimmering Emerald-Green, Amid Which The Catbird And The Bluebird Have Gone Mad With Joy. With The First Warm Days Of April Came The Large Blue And Gray Dragon-Flies, Flitting And Whirring Erratically Over The Ponds And The Pools And Creeks. Whence Do They Come? From The South, I Suppose; For Suddenly They Are Here, And No One Has Seen Them Come; Probably Brought Hither On The Wings Of The Wind That Beat About My Roof Last Night With Plaintive Rain. The Two Blossoms That God Made Alike, The Bloodroot And The Twinleaf, Are Now No More. The Dogwood Dazzles The Woods, A Steadfast Form Of Snow And Light That Keeps Guard At The Gateway Of The Courts Of Spring And Poses Brilliantly For Our Admiration. The Tender Pink And Delicate Mauve Of The Spotted Leaves Of The Wild-Grape, Roofing With Twilight The Saplinged Hillside, Where Like Lamps Of Gold The Celandine Poppies Are Scattered, Build A Green Temple Within Whose Sanctuary Sunbeams Glimmer, Like Spirits Worshipping And Offering Up Flowery Sacrifice To The Maiden Spring. At Its Entrance, Like Galahad The Pure Knight, In Armor Of Dazzling Whiteness, Stands The Blossoming Dogwood Deep In The Leaves' Concealing Green A Wood-Thrush Flutes, The First Thrush Seen Or Heard This Spring, And Straight, Meseems, Its Notes Take On The Attributes Of Mythic Fancies And Of Dreams A Faun Goes Piping O'Er The Roots And Mosses, Gliding Through Dim Gleams And Glooms, And While He Glides He Flutes, Though Still Unseen, 'Mid Thorny Berry And Wild-Bean. The Ripened Heads Of The Rattlesnake Plantain Nod Their Touseled Tufts Of Thistledown At Me, Or Is It At The Little Blue Butterflies That Flutter Around Them? As If They Knew A Thing Or Two About What Happens Among Their Stalks In The Light Of The May Moon When The Little People Are Abroad, And The Cricket Makes Dance Music For Them. The Dewberries Are Blooming Now: The Days Are Long; The Nights Are Short; The Dogwood Blossom From Its Bough Drops Snowy Petals, Heart By Heart, Here Where She Laid 'Gainst Mine Her Brow When We Did Part. Soon Where The Dewberries' Blossoms Gleam The Berries Red Will, Ripening, Glow; And If The Dogwood By The Stream Did Ever Bloom, No One Will Know, And She, Too, Seem A Vanished Dream Of Long Ago. The Yellow Star-Flower Shows Its Gold Among The Trees, Half Hid In Grass; Already Do The Leaves Grow Old; Already Doth The Springtime Pass; And Last Year'S Leaf Hath Turned To Mould, As Love, Alas! The Crowfoot Blossom Lifts Its Eyes Of Amber Hue From 'Round My Feet; The Bluet Apes The Mayday Skies With Glances Blue As They Are Sweet, Here Where Last Spring We Met With Sighs, No More To Meet. Purple The Hills Stretch Under Purple Mists, A Damson-Frosted Purple That Persists Even In The Valley, Darkling There That Lies No Bluer Black Hath Night, No Darker Dyes. The Low Gray Clouds, Whose Edges Are Thinned, And Spun By The Sun And The Wind, How They Swirl And Curl And Furl And Unfurl Into Lawny Lengths Of Snow And Pearl! Now Feathering White As The Moon-Mists Do, For The Wind And The Sun To Tempest Through, Now Closing Over, Cloud-Cover On Cover, Deep Azure Chasms Of Fringing Blue. The Cedars Are Breaking Into Gold. Their Dark Green Sprays Are Flushed With The Young Gold Of May, Tufted And Spined And Edged As With Amber-Flickering Fire. It Is Like Coming Upon A Bit Of The Orient, A Dream Of Samarcand Or Bagdad, To Come Upon This Clump Of Great Crimson-And Orange-Headed Poppies, Sultry With Slumber And Magnificently Indolent In The Sunlight. Their Sullen Hearts, Opium-Pollened, Smooth, Deep Brown Or Purple-Black, They Hold Up And Open, Languid And Beautiful Courtesans To Every Passing Bee, Inviting Them To Drug Themselves And Dream Within Their Voluptuous Bosoms. Me, Too, They Have Drugged Days Shall Pass, Months, Perhaps Years, And Still Shall The Memory Of Their Beauty Haunt Me Their Faces Of Henna-Colored Flame; Or, Raimented In Ruby, Their Bosoms Of Fire, Sullen-Centred With Hearts Of Powdery Purple. Hark How The Honey-Throated Thrush With Notes Of Limpid Harmony Scatters The Noonday'S Liquid Hush, Taking The Woods With Witchery. Hid In The Foliage Deeps Of Green He Flutes His Wildwood Notes Serene, Like Some Tree-Spirit, Lost, Unseen. May 15Th, 1903. Deep-Hearted Peonies, Soft-Souled As Sleep And Gorgeous As A Dream That Comes Tricked Out In Shakespeare'S Fancy, Now Make Sumptuous The Garden Ways. Holding Up Their Heavy, Dew-Jewelled Gowns Of Crumpled Crimson Or Cream, They Stand, Stately As The Athenian Ladies In Midsummer-Night'S Dream Smiling At Their Lovers. The Milk-White Stars Of The Water-Lilies Peep From Between The Green Pads Of The Pond, At Whose Edge The Sparrow And The Thrush Are Taking Their Morning Bath, Preening With Wet Beaks Their Backs And Wings And Breasts. Bubbles Of Bursting Coolness Rise Between The Lily-Leaves, Marking The Way The Gold Carp Goes, A Crimson Blur, A Rosy Shadow, A Slow, Strange Streak Of Chilly Flame, Moving Dimly Under The Lilies In The Smoky Crystal Of The Waters. Giant Irises Clump And Crowd The Water'S Edge. Their Beautiful Blossoms, Azure And White, Are The Huge Notes Of A Soundless Symphony Under Whose Spell The Water Seems To Sleep. The Ground Is Strewn With The Dead Oak-Bloom, Brown And Withered As Autumn Broom: And There, In A Hollow Of The Hills, Like A Giant Pearl In A Giant Hand, Is A White-Washed Hut Where An Old Man Tills A Barren Acre Of Barren Land. An Arid Acre, That Soon Shall Blow With Wild-Rose Crimson And Elder Snow. I Unlabyrinthed To-Day A Little Worm No Larger Than A Pin'S Head That Had Caused A Weed'S Stem To Swell And Swell, Eating Its Long, Larval Way Through The Heart Of The Weed. That Little Worm Shall Become A Fly, And Sing And Sting 'Neath The Summer Sky; Or A Gnat, Like That Which Grows In The Gall High On Theoak Leaf There A Ball That The Elves Shall Loose And Toss Over All Merrily Under The Next New Moon; When It'Ll Grow Itself Wings And A Sting And A Tune, Stinging And Singing Its Way Into June. The Cow-Spit Flecks The Ragweed'S Stem With Frothy-White, A Slimy Foam With Which A Flat Green Worm Seems To Deluge Itself Pumping It Up Out Of The Green Of The Weed. It Reminds Me Of Certain Novelists Whose Impossible Styles Are Literally Overwhelmed With The Froth And Fury Of Their Fictions. The Red Clay Of The Road Is Bored And Heaved Up By Some Sort Of Insect, A Mining Hornet, Or Spider Hiding From A Hornet, To Which The Bug In The Weed, Drowned In Its Own Spittle, Bears Some Resemblance. Each Has Its Own Little World To Live In, Whether It Be A Hole In The Earth Or A Hole In A Weed. May 16Th, 1903. Bells Of The Blossoming Huckleberries Ringing Their Inaudible White Music Up And Down The Maytime Hills, And A Million Bluets Blooming, Among Whose Blossoms One Gold-Thighed Bee Goes Roaming, Invite My Soul To Rest Awhile And Dream Beneath Their Azure Smile. The Smell Of Tannin In The Ozoned Air Under The Oaks When The Woods Are Green, And The Scent Of The Soil And Moisture Where The Young Leaves Dangle And Make A Screen, Where The Hiding Wood-Nymph Combs Her Hair, Have Breathed Me Full Of The Faun Again, And Made Me Kin To The Wind And Rain. The Stealthy Squirrel Skips Along; The Bush-Bird Lifts Its Twilight Song; The Great Frog Sounds His Resonant Gong At Nightfall. The Small Wood-Gnat, That Stings And Flies, And Drowns Itself For Rage In Your Eyes, Sings And Whines And Thinly Cries At Nightfall. The Hairy Spiders, That Crouch Outside Their Earth-Bored Lairs, Now Stealthily Glide, Or Spin Great Webs For The Moths That Hide Till Nightfall May 17Th, 1903. Three Birds Have Followed And Haunted My Steps All The Afternoon. First, A Catbird, Singing A P?An In Praise Of The Day, Filled With A Passion Of Splendid Sunlight And Warm Wind, Perched In The Top Of A Cottonwood Whose Woolly Wisps Are Blown Like Fragments Of Fleece Through The Air. Second, A Song-Sparrow, Small And Sweet, Lilting A Pensive Little Lay, Small And Sweet As Itself, A Tinkle, As It Were, A Silvering Down Of Dewy Notes. Thirdly, A Crimson-Winged Blackbird, Repeating Monotonously Its One Strident, Persistently Piercing And Importunate Note, Emphasized Occasionally By Prolonging The Expression"Sweet" Into"S-W-E-E-E-E-T, " Or Is It"Sweet-Er-Ee, " Or"O-Ka-Lee"? Colorado, June 12Th, 1903. The Pools Of Water Left By The Rain Of Last Night In The Rocks Of The Mountains Are The Mirrors Over Which The Oreads Braid Their Hair, Heavy With The Wet Of The Mountain Mists And Twined With The Mountain Flowers. I Can Fancy Them, White And Naked As The Stars That Haunt The Loftiest Peaks, Leaning Like Lilies Over These Pools, By The Moon'S Cold Light, Wondering And Marvelling At Their Own Wild Loveliness, Their Eyes Shining Through Their Locks, Dark And Dishevelled, As The Mountain Dawn Breaks, Violet-Gray, Through Scud Of Streaming Storm. October, 28Th, 1903. Autumn Is With Us. She Who Endears Herself To Us Through Her Decay. Again The Sober Brown Carpet Of The Leaves Rustles On The Forest Floors. Once More, Here In Kentucky, The Long Bronze-Green Blurs And Streaks, Stealthily Serpentine, Of The Duckweed Marble The Sluggish Streams And Pools With Copperas Hues, Making Of Each A Huge Moss-Agate, Under The Clear Lemon And Burnt Brown Of The Beeches. Again The Huckleberry Bushes Seem Turned Into Garnet And Ruby, Their Leaves, Colored With Carmine And Vermilion, Cover Each Bush, Making It Burn Like That From Which God Addressed Moses. Again The Moss, Crisp, Dry And Gray, Starred Here And There With Plushy Green, Makes Mute The Step. Again The Acorns Sow The Way, Falling Continually, And Crunching And Crackling Under The Feet, Along With The Burrs Of The Beech And Chestnut Now Emptied Of Their Nuts. Again The Oleander-Colored Skies Of Sunset, Seen Through The Columned Iron Of The Oaks, Invite The Soul To Wander And Lose Itself In The Forest Of Dreams And Shadows. The Blue-Winged Wasp And The Yellow-Winged Grasshopper Seem Aweary Of Their Own Singing. The Bush-Clover, Tired Of Its Papilionaceous, Pink Blossoms, Is Converting Them Rapidly Into Links Of Flat Green Burrs That Loosen And Cling To All That Touches Them. Burr-Marigolds Besiege The Woodland Ways, Bristling An Army Of Brown Burrheads, Dishevelled Spikes Of Forked Thorns. Flame-Flecked Leav