Es, Or Leaves Stained With Blood-Red Fire, Flutter And Fall Around Us, Heaping The Path That Leads To The Leaf-Clogged Stream, Reflecting All The Sorrow And Savagery Of The Year, The Cinnabar Of The Burning-Bush, The Scarlet Of The Sumachs, Already Half-Stripped Of Their Leaves, And The Crimson And Gold Of The Maples. Now And Then One Catches The Pungent, Alkali Odor, So Characteristic Of Autumn, Of Burning Wood And Weeds; And In The Twilight, Dotting It Like The Eyes Of Some Forest Animal, The Distant Smoulder Or Flare Of A Brush-Fire. And Then At Night With What A Feeling Of Awe We Walk The Autumn Woods! What Wonders, What Whispers Walk With Us! Death And Melancholy And Decay, Mysterious And Invisible Companions Of The Rain And The Wind, Seem Never Weary Of Telling Us Of The Sorrow, The Sadness Of Existence, Complaining Ceaselessly To The Sighing And Weeping Trees And The Unhappy And Dying Flowers. Where The Rain That Comes At Night Tip-Toes In Its Whispering Gown, The Briers Are Bruised And Veined With Bronze And Blood; Each Leaf Is Marked With Fire And Flame Makes Fierce Each Spire. The Oaks Sullen Into Swarthy Crimson; Or, Masses Of Brown And Bronze, They Sombre Themselves Against The Ember-Smouldering West. Yesterday Among The Beeches, To-Day Among The Oaks: Those With Their Emerald And Gold, Their Amber Golds And Grays, These With Their Blood-Dark Bronze, Translucent, Frosty Reds: The Gold The Autumn Dons, The Blood Her Sad Heart Sheds, As Slow She Goes Her Ways; Sheds At Each Step, That Cloaks Each Pool That Glimmers Cold, Sunk In The Woodland Mould, 'Mid The Oaks, Of Whose Russets And Reds Winds Make Their Beds, Bowing Their Withered Heads, That Are Old, So Old, Where The Autumn Cons, In Her Golds And Grays, Her Book Of Days. The Wind Is Rising And The Leaves Are Blown, Wild, Swallow-High, Reluctant Still To Fall, Swarming From Hill To Hill; And Over All The Sere, Wild-Sounding Oaks A Voice Calls Lone, As If The Wood Some Ancient Word Were Sighing, Some Unintelligible Word Of Beauty Dying. The Dawn Comes In Clad All In Hodden Gray, And, Like A Tattered Cloak Its Wildness Wears, The Ragged Rain Sweeps Stormily This Way: The Acorn, Like A Bullet, Strikes The Soil; And Blown From Its Wild Pod The Milkweed'S Plume, Wan In The Ghostly And The Gusty Gloom, Flares Like A Lamp Hand-Hollowed Of Trembling Toil. November 12Th, 1904. Hylas, That Pipe The Little Buds Awake; The Shrill Hylodes, How They Sing Before The Wind-Flower And The Bloodroot Shake Their Twinkling Stars Frail In The Locks Of Spring. The Rose-Bruised Blue Of The Bluebell'S Buds Will Soon Make Gay The Hem Of Her Gown; Green As The Green Of The Young Oak Woods With Changing Tints Of Mauve And Brown. And Soon Will Golden Poppies Cling In Woodland Places Deep With Loam, And We Shall Glimpse The Feet Of Spring White In The Twinleaf'S Flowers Of Foam. And All The Hillside'S Rugged Rocks She'll Shower With Shell-Shaped White-Heart Blooms, Shaken From Out Her Radiant Locks, As Down She Comes Through Greenwood Glooms. Spring Is Late This Year. It Is Now March 12Th, And Hardly A Bud Or Blossom Is To Be Seen Anywhere In Field Or Forest; Not A Wildflower, Neither Harbinger-Of-Spring, Spring-Beauty, Nor Anemone. All Is Still Sere And Sad In The Bare Brown Of The Windy Woods. Not Even A Violet To Push Aside The Dead Leaves And Open Its Baby Eyes To The Stormy Sunlight. Only Spring'S Presence, Or Is It Her Approach? Is Evidenced By The Warm, Wet Smell Of Turf And Loam And Leaf The Aroma That Haunts Her Gown'S Green Hem Brushing Here And There The Edges Of The Woods; And By The Sunlight Basking White On The Hilltops The Slow Silver Of Her Delaying Feet. Still Are The Forests Barren Of All Buds, And All The Woods Of Wildflowers; But, Behold! Within A Week Or Less The Invading Hosts, Myriad And Many As The Stars Of Heaven, Shall Utterly Invade These Woodland Ways, When Every Foot Of Soil Shall Show And Boast Its Bud Or Blossom Or Balsam-Beak?D Leaf, Bragging Of Beauty To The Passer-By, Beggared And Bankrupt Of All Words To Praise. Come, Let Us Forth And Homage Her, Clothed On With Warmth And Musk And Myrrh, The Indescribable Odor Wild That Clings Around Her Like A Garment: Let Us Sing Songs To Her, Glad As Grass And All The Things Exulting In Her Presence Greening Things And Airy That Have Gotten Them New Wings: Come, Let Us Forth And Give Our Praise To Spring. The Flowers Now Are Holding Their Public Pomps And Pageants Making Gay The Worlds Of The Woods. Warm Scents Of Rain And Of Sun, Of Loam And Of Leaf Courier Their Coming, And The Wind Is A Herald'S Bugle, Bannered With The Blue Of Heaven, Sounding Before Them. My Mind'S Washed Clean By The Wind That Brings The Wild Warm Scent Of The Woods On Its Wings, The Racy Sweets Of The Bourgeonings Of Flower And Tree And Brier That Clings. My Head I Bare To The Winds That Blare, That Blow From The Purple Heart Of The Cloud, Now Low, Now Loud, From The Heart Of The Cloud, Like A Giant'S Hair, Blown Everywhere, Blue-Black And Low, Heavy With Rain And The Pearly Glow Of Sunlight Gulfing Its Deeps With Snow. Blow, Winds Of Spring! O Blow, Blow, Blow! Caress My Brow Like Fingers Fair, Cool Fingers Touching My Eyes And Hair! Blow, Spring Winds, Blow! O Blow, Blow, Blow! Blow Out Of My Soul All Cark And Care! And Out Of My Heart, Aye! Out Of My Heart, Despair! The Wind Goes Groping Among The Trees, Telling The Bees Where The Little Buds Open That No One Sees. At Intervals, As Softly Cool It Blows, The Wild-Plum Shows Its Bee-Swarm'D Clusters 'Twixt The Wood'S Dark Rows. The Sluggish Snake Now Basks His Uncoiled Length Beside The Windings Of The Water-Course; With Torpid Beady Eyes He Lies And Dreams Where Warm The Sunlight Sleeps. Near By Him Claws Of Some Strange Beast Have Marked The Furrowed Sand As With Deep Talonings Of Mighty Rage Here On The Wild Road Where It Fords The Stream. Rocked By The Winds Of March The Trees Become, Each One A Maddened Pendulum Swayed Every Way As If In Time To Some Wild Music, Roaring Rhyme Shouted From Storm-Tossed Hill To Hill, Amid The Forests That Are Never Still. What Dance Is Wilder Than That The Dead Leaves Dance, Made Frantic By The Winds Of March? What Music More Welcome Than The Bucksaw Sound Of The Hylas Chorusing A Song In Praise Of Spring In The Flooded Bottom-Lands And Marshy Pools Of The Valleys? Or What Is Rosier Than The Rosy Tassels That Tag The Sugar Tree When It Lifts Itself Like A Banner Unfurled In The Very Forefront Of The Advancing Armies Of Spring? March 27Th, 1905. I Found The Hepatica With Its Twisted Hairy Stems And Three-Lobed Leaves Blooming Retiredly At The Protecting Base Of An Old Beech, Hidden, Or Trying To Hide, In A Rooty Angle Of Lichen And Leaves And Moss. A Peculiarity Of These Hepatica Blossoms Is That They Are A Delicate Pink, Almost White, And Not Blue The Color Generally Attributed To The Liverwort. Think Of The Strength Of The Sprouting Germ Of Such A Tender And Frail Thing As A Wildflower! Lifting Or Displacing A Clod, Or Even A Small Stone Often With Its Pointed Bud; Piercing With Its Slender Green The Superimposed Layers Of Dead Leaves As A Needle Might; And Not Till They Are Pierced, Unfolding The Large Beauty Of Its Leaf. Thus To-Day I Noted Many Of The Leaves Of The Adder'S-Tongue, Or Dog'S-Tooth Violet, Collared Or Ruffed Curiously With A Collar Or Ruff Of Dead Leaves, Which They Had Neatly And Completely Pierced. The Spicewood Bush Is Now In Bloom. Its Yet Leafless Branches Are Illuminated With Many Fuzzy Little Flowers, Lights Of Pale Amber, Aromatic As Some Oriental Pastil. The Gold-Green Blooms Of The Spicebush Burn Lighting The Wood At Every Turn; Like The Starry Tufts Of The Sassafras, Whose Fragrance Thrills Us As We Pass, From Out Their Patens Of Gold They Spill A Faint Aroma That Haunts The Hill. How Late Joy Is In Coming! Late As Is The Young Hickory To Don Its Raiment Of Green And Gold; Whereas It Should Be Rathe As The Redbud That, A Month Ago, Flaunted A Mass Of Rejoicing Rose, Making Happy The Otherwise Barren Forestside: Or As The Pawpaw That, Days Ago, Gladdened The Woods With Its Bells Of Deep, Dark Bronze, Belfrying Its Leafless Boughs Where The Winds Hung, Like Bell-Ringers, Ringing The Month'S Marriage Peals. Placid And Pure And Clean The Wild-Phlox Blooms Make Glad The Hillsides And Deep-Wooded Banks Of Wandering Creeks. Beneath The Old, Gray Beech The Mayapples, In Myriad Colonies, Advance-Guards Of The Wildflowers' Following Hosts, Lift Up Their Green-And-Umber Tents Of Leaves, Each Unrolled Tent Tipped With Its Furled-Up Flag, Its Pea-Like Bud, A Knob Of Delicate Green, Wherein The Milk-White, Blazoned Deep With Gold, Of Its Broad Bloom, Its Banner'S Packed Away. While At The Wood'S Edge, At The Turn O' The Lane, A Clear, A Chilly Crimson In Its Keys, Its Million Blooms, The Maple Fairly Glows, Making A Crystal Blur Of Rosy Gloom; Wherein The Bluebird, Like A Sapphire Closed In An Enormous Ruby, Sits And Sings; Upon His Back And On His Wayward Wings The Lapis-Lazuli O' The April Sky. April 5Th, 1905. Who Is It Knows How The Huckleberry Grows, Blooms And Blows? Only The Bird That Sings And Sings, Waving Its Wings, Saying, "Come See It Where It Swings! Ruddy Green And Amber Rose, See, Oh, See, In Honor Of Spring, Under This Tree, See How They Ring Their Tiny Bells, That Cluster Out, Silvery Red, In A Rosy Rout." In The Poorest Soil Of The Hillside, Amid Rocks, Felled Wood, And Mosses, I Found The Bird'S-Foot Violet With Its Pansy-Like Blossoms, Purple And Blue, Scattered And Glowing Like Vari-Colored Sapphires. And Under The April Crimson That The Oaks Had Donned The Yellow Puccoon Made Bright The Barren Ways Of The Waste Hillside. On May The 1St, I Found Its Tubular Gold, Like Little Trumpets Of The Elves, Held Up, As If Ready To Salute Me With Golden Announcement, By Every Road-Side And In The Grassless Places Of The Hills. The Bright Star-Of-Bethlehem, Immaculate White, Fixed Its Shining Eye Upon Me, Like The Bright Eyes Of Adventure, Here And There, Looking Out Of Every Grassy Place I Passed As From A Green, Small Firmament All Its Own. May 5Th, 1905. The Dead-Leaf Carpet Of The Underwoods, Covered White With The Dropped Petals Of The Fallen And Drifted Blossoms Of The Dogwoods, Is As If It Were Flaked With Snow. Here And There Amid Their White The Tall, Spadixed Blossoms Of The Indian-Turnip Are Seen, Green And Purple, Or Bluish White Striped With Clear Gray-Green. The Wood, This Morning, Is Invaded Of Snails. An Elfin Army, Black, Gray, And Brown, Thrusting Forth Their Horns, Like Some Strange Weapon Of Defence, Their Shells Looking Like So Many Queer Knapsacks, They Storm The Stumps Of The Trees, Swarm Over The Roads, And Scatter Their Skirmishers Among The Rocks And Roots Of The Forest, Investing Everything Before Them, Leaf And Blossom And Fungus. Three I Found Attacking A Single Leaf, Two Thirds Of Which Had Already Disappeared. At Another Place A Great Reddish Brown Snail Was Busy Devouring What Seemed At First To Be A Caterpillar And Which Afterwards Proved To Be A Long, Fuzzy, Yellow Blossom; The Watery Red Of The Snail And The Golden-White Of The Blossom Producing Quite A Peculiar Color Effect. What If Curses Should Fall As Thickly As Snails Come After A Rainy Night In Early May? Irresistible As The Impulse Of Spring To Leaf And Blossom And Bear And Bless Us With The Beautiful What If This Impulse Should Suddenly Take The Opposite Course, Producing, Instead Of The Beautiful, The Terrible And The Horrible, Like This Slimy Vermin Swarming Over The Woodland Ways! Who Will Tell Me Why Ants Are Continually And Persistently Climbing The Trees? Wandering Here And There, Irresolutely, Indefinitely, At A Loss As To What They Are Seeking, Over The Flat Broad Surfaces Of The Leaves; And At Length Reaching The Topmost Twig Of A Branch, Or A Leaf, Or Of The Tree, Turning And Retracing Their Way Just As Hurriedly Downward? There Are No Aphides, No Insect Kine For Them To Stroke And Milk; No Honey-Dew, No Gummy Sweetness Perceptible That Might Attract Them. Can It Be That The Fascination, The Curiosity To See How The Earth Looks From A Great Height Lures And Compels Them, Too, As It Often Does Us Mortals? May 18Th, 1905. The Strawberry Bush (Running Euonymus) Is Now In Full Bloom; Covered With Five-Petaled, Flat, Fleshy, Green Flowers Which Shall Eventually Evolve The Crimson-Burred Pods, Packed With Scarlet Seeds, Of Early Autumn. Like A Carcanet Of Living And Graceful Emerald, The Green Snake Glides Across My Way; Silently Sinuous, Moving Swiftly To The Upper Twigs Of The Euonymus; Under Which, Lumbering Along Slowly Beneath Its Mottled And Incasing Shell, A Land-Turtle Rustles Over And Through The Leaves An Ungainly Bulk, Whose Rubber-Colored Neck And Feet And Tail Protrude Grotesquely From The Shell, Into Which At A Movement Of My Foot They Are Instantly Withdrawn. I Found The Shin-Leaf With Its Rocket-Like Flowers Of White-Blue Blossoming In The Open Woods To-Day. On It, Like A Japanese Design, Sat A Butterfly, Wings Outspread, The Sumptuous Coloring Of Which Defies Description. The First Heavy-Headed Stalks Of The Beard'S-Tongue, Lilac And White, Plume With Orchid-Like Blossoms The Fields And The Forest Ways. Here On The Slope Of The Hill, Sheltering Under The Oaks, Fresh As The Break Of Day, And Breathing Rainy Fragrance Around, I Found The Innumerable Wild-Rose Blooming, Each One A Round Pink Yawn Of Perfume, Young And Fresh And Sweet As The Young, Sweet, Dewy Beauty Of A Baby'S Mouth. The Wild-Potato Vine, Too, I Found In Full Bloom; Its Large Chalices, White Cups Of Opaque Crystal, Spotting And Dotting The Open Fields And Vistas Of The Woods. The Wild-Parsley, With Its Lacy, Gracefully Penciled Umbels, Hedged With Tall Gold The Banks Of A Creek That Slid Tinkling From The Gloom, From The Hillside Where, In Patches, Among The Rocks, Like Outcroppings Of Gold, Shining In The Sunlight, Yellowed The Blossoms Of The Puccoon. The Blossoms Of The Shin-Leaf, Hued And Shaped Like Forget-Me-Nots, On The Tops Of Their Stiff, Prim-Looking Stalks, Tower Gracefully From The Low Whorl Of Their Large Mullein-Like Leaves. Not Far Away The Goat'S-Rue, With Its Papilionaceous Flowers, Looking Like Many Saffron And Rose Colored Butterflies, Makes Glorious The Rocky Hillside Sloping To The Little Creek Singing, Like A Happy Child Amid Its Gathered Wildflowers, Unseen In The Woody Hollow. Snug In Its Curled-Up Leaf The Spider Hides, Safe From The Searching Mudwasp, Whining Impatiently, Flitting From Flower To Leaf. The Blue-Winged Wasp And The Yellow-Winged Grasshopper Seem To Be The Only Insects Awake Here Where In Countless Numbers The Wild Onion Blooms. Like The Insects, The Blossoms Too Seem Asleep; Their Six-Petaled, Star-Shaped Flowers, Pale Lavender, Almost White, Dot The Distance Dimly. Their Knob-Like Seeds On Their Tall, Stiff, Succulent Stems Give A Polka-Dot Effect To The Tall Grass White Dottings On A Green Background. Here In The Dense Underwoods The Wood-Dove Nests. Far Away, Mournful In The Nooning, I Heard Her Cooing. Here And There In The Hollows Of The Woods Stout And Stocky Toadstools, Marble-Gray And White, Look Like So Many Tents, Or Temples, That The Imps Of The Moon And The Starlight Have Raised. In The Shadows, Along The Wood Ways, Damp And Dumpy, Fat And Lean, White And Yellow, Terracotta And Crimson, Green And Blue, Poisonous Looking, And, When Not Bloated, Beautiful As Strange Blossoms Are Beautiful Of The Ranker Weeds, Pearl- And Pink-Gilled, Slender Or Thick-Stemmed, They Orb Their Cones And Discs Grotesque As The Work Of Gnomes. The Robin'S-Plantain Lifts Its Lilac Round Of Ray-Flowers, Looking Down, Like A Yellow-Pupiled Eye, Upon The Snail That Clings Gnawing On A Wild-Rose Near By, As Melancholy Clings Gnawing At A Heart. Suddenly I Hear The Carolina Wren Singing In The Top Of A Haw Tree, "Cheer Up, And Cheer Up, And Cheer Up!" That Trees Have An Intelligent As Well As A Sentient Life To Me Is Evident And Provable. That Plants Have A Sense Perception Of Taste And Feeling Has Been Proven. If Sense Perceprion, Why Not Thought Perception As Well? About A Month Ago, Early In May, Sitting Under This Oak On The Top Of Kenwood Hill, I Conceived The Idea Of Stripping The Leaves From One Of Its Branches And Of Seeing What Within A Month Would Happen. I Carefully Cut Away Every Leaf At Its Base Where Attached To The Twigs, Doing No Injury To The Young Acorns That Were Just Forming. Returning To The Same Place A Month Thereafter I Find That The Bough Has Put Forth New Leaves Tenderly Slender And Palely Delicate, Invalid-Looking Leaves Smaller And Less Sturdy It Is True Than The Ones Which I Removed, But Leaves Nevertheless. It Is To Me As If The Tree Had Become Conscious Of The Bareness Of This One Bough, And The Parent Stem Had Corrected Its Condition, Clothing It With Green Again. Now The Question That Arises In My Mind Is How Did The Tree Know That This Particular Limb Had Been Stripped Of Its Leaves? It Certainly Must Have Known It Or It Never Would Have Put Forth New Leaves Again So Early In The Season. There Must Be Some Manner Of Intelligent Communication Between The Outmost Branches And The Roots Of The Tree, Its Fibrous Heart Or Brain Or Nervous Centre, Whatever You Call It, That Is Capable Of Receiving Information Of, And Then Of Remedying, Some Accidental Defect, Not Vital, In Its Body. In Fact I Truly Believe That Trees Are Capable Of Thought The Same As Animals Are, Though, Of Course, In A Lesser Degree. June 22D, 1905. Clothed In Redundancy Of Bloom And Beauty June Meets Me At Every Turn Of This Leafy Lane, Offering Me Now A Spray Of Red Half-Ripe Blackberries, Now A Handful Of Herbs Mixed With The White Ulms Of The Wild Hydrangea, And Now A Double Armful Of Elder Blossoms, Redolent Of Sun And Rain And Imprisoning Within Their Starry Stems A Whole Summer Of Hot Perfume. The Liquid Note Of The Thrush What Words Can Describe It? Above Me Now I Hear It, Droppingits Glob?D Harmony, Golden-Bubbled, Crystalline Clear, Indescribably Deep. Questioningly, Answeringly Its Music Falls, Notes Of Antiphonal Gold, Full Of Youth And Joy; A Tree-Spirit, Seemingly, Voicing The Innocence, The Exuberance, The Beauty Of Invisible, Inviolable Things; Wild Myths That Populate The World Of The Woods And Streams. Pensively, Hopefully Now It Pleads, Pleads For The Dreams That Haunt The Hearts Of The Trees, The Soul Of The Woodland Dreams That It Sees From Its Leafy Height, Its Breezy Eyrie Of Green, Dreams That It Sees And Knows. And Now For Me Its Music, Too, Takes Form, Visible, Material Form: And I Seem To See A Presence, Young With The Youth That Never Ages, A Faun, A Spirit, Slender And Naked As Spring, Deep In The Forest, Approaching And Now Retreating, Blowing His Flute Of Flowers, Gleaming, Vanishing Far In The Verdurous Glooms: A Spirit, Happy With All That Is Happy, Communicated Joy Of All That Is Beauty, The Wild, Wild Beauty It Drew From The Breasts Of Its Mother, Its Beautiful Mother, Nature: A Phantom Supernal In Loveliness, Responsive And Tender, Diaphanous, Hyaline, Translucently Green And Golden, Golden And Green Like The Sound Of A Thrush'S Fluting: A Form Of Light Like That Which Shimmers And Shades Under The Day-Deep Boughs Of The Myriad Beeches; Flitting, Wavering Now Like A Joy That Dances, Silent, Alone In The Heart Of The Forest. Shimmering, Glimmering Here Like The Ray That Stars The Ripples, Sun-Speared, Flashing And Fading On Woodland Waters, Falling, Calling, Foamy-Lipped, Like A Naiad, Lost In The Leaves, The Remotest Deeps Of The Forest, Like The Rain That Tips The Point Of A Poplar Leaf, Trembling, A Liquid Star, To Its Twinkling Fall, There It Glances And Glints, Tinkling With Silver The Silence; There It Hazes Like Heat That Haunts The Summer Meadows, To Whose Kisses The Wildflowers Open Their Wondering And Fragrant Eyes: A Glimmering Form It Leads Me, Musical Ever Of Motion, From Wildwood Place To Place, Retreating, Advancing, Luring From Vista To Vista, Far And Far In The Forest, The Haunted Deeps Of The Forest, To Slay Me There, Perhaps, At Last, At Last With Some Last, Long And Lovelier Note, Ringing As Gold And Deeper In Magic Than The Myths Of Old. The Milkweed'S Ball Of Lilac-Colored Blossoms Swings, Heavy With The Wet, By The Wayside. In It A Striped Beetle Burrows, Drunken With The Honeyed Perfume That Filters From Its Hundred Mouths Of Nectar. Guidons Of Fairy Cavalry, Slender Gold And Emerald And Azure, The Dragon-Flies Twinkle Hither And Thither Or Rest Alert Of Wing On The Wild-Flag Blades That Rim, As It Were With An Abatis Of Green Swords, The Woodland Water, The Way To Which Is Literally Lost In And Overwhelmed With The Bugled Stalks Of The Jewelweed Or Touch-Me-Not. A Wood-Thrush Flutes Overhead. And Again I Think All The Sweet Words In The World Married To Melody By The Greatest Musical Genius Could Not Express To Me What Its Few Simple But Inspired Notes Express Of Expectation, Of Woodland Mystery, Dreams, And Wonder-Visions Never To Be Seen, Remote, Unattainably Beautiful. O Indescribable Song Of The Thrush! O June! O Love! O Youth! Of You, Of You It Speaks To-Me! And Of The Lost, The Irremediable; The Indescribably Fair And Far And Yet To Be Found, The Mysteriously Hidden, The Undiscoverable, Calling Me In The Voice Of All My Longings Through The Cadenced Aisles Of The Forest. Crystal Gleaming, Quicksilver-Sparkling Brilliants, Moonbeam Jewels For Sylvan Spirits To Braid In Their Bark-Brown Tresses, Or String In Starry Carcanets Of Liquid Spar Around Their Throats Of Wildflower Whiteness, Are The Drops Of Rounded Rain Caught And Held In The Green Hollows Of The Leaves That The Rays Of The Afternoon Sun Love To Linger Upon, Impregnating Them With Cool White Fires. Already Are The Burning Bushes (The Running Euonymus) Covered With Little Round Warty Capsules Of Beryl-Green That In September Shall Astonish This Path With Color Glowing Into Ruby And Rose, Making A Diminutive Sunset Of Fragmentary Scarlet Under The Dark Vault Of Tangled Thorns And Limbs Of Unescapable Beeches. The Woodpecker! Hear Him, The Red-Capped, Driving Home His Bill! Driving Deliberately Home His Bill In The Top Limb Of Yonder Tree. Swiftly, Instantly, Repeatedly It Sounds, Resonant, Distinct In The Hollow Wood. What A Prospect From Such An Outlook, What A World Of Limb And Leaf, Ever Moving, Restless In Its Rest, Must That Be From Where He Raps! That Tallest Giant Of Them All, That Poplar There Where So Unconcernedly He Clings. What Exultation Of Height! What Intoxication Of Cloud And Sky! Of Wind And Rapture In The Blowing Hair Of The Tree! Its Rocking And Nodding Head! Oh, That I Too Had Wings! The Crawfish In His Tower Of Ooze And Clay What Knows He Of The Day! Like Some Crabb'D Misanthrope, Sans Joy, Sans Hope, He Sits Within His Pit Seeing No Part Of Heaven, That Azures Over It. The Lizard Streaks Itself From View, Swiftly A Noise Of Clutching And Hurrying Claws, Around The Dark-Gray Trunk Of The Oak; Bark-Colored Itself, It Is Hardly Distinguishable From The Lichens That Scrawl Curiously With Wandering Hieroglyphics The Sunless Side On Which It Hides. Hag-Tapers Bow Their Heads I' The Wind Like Candles The Witches Bear; And, Thinned As The Moonlight Is Where A Soul Has Sinned, Their Blossoms Look; And A Flower Red Blooms Near Them, Shaped Like A Viper'S Head, A Blood-Blotched Flower, Like A Symbol Pinned To The Breast Of A Gipsy Dagger-Dead, A Damsel Frail As A Flower, Oh! June 29Th, 1905. Here Late In June Bloom The Black Cohosh And The Butterfly-Weed: The One Holding High Its Plumes Of Snowy-White, Like Some Champion Of The Woods; The Other, Umbels Of Flame, Splashing As With Battle-Stains The Open Vistas Of The Trees. The Blue-Black Wasp, Black-Winged, Its Two Orange-Bright Feathers Flying From Its Head, Dashes Swiftly By A Fairy Courier Bearing Dispatches From Mab To Oberon: Alert, Undelaying, Fearless, His Dagger Ever Ready, He Proceeds Determinedly Upon His Way. Some Snakes Are Beautiful, Others, Hideous; I Have Met With Both Kinds, Never Molesting Them If They Exhibited No Signs Of A Desire To Molest Me. How Fearfully Some Of Them Are Fashioned; This One, For Instance, Which I Have Just Crushed With A Stone, Short, Darkly Diamonded, That, With Its Spreading Neck And Head, Gave Me Such A Start A Moment Ago. Here Where The Twilight-Colored Trunks Of Trees, Mottled With Lichen, Arch The Twilight Way, Where Every Crooked Bough, Swayed By The Breeze, Now Seems A Knotted Serpent, Viperous Gray, Because Of One Whose Flat And Horrible Head, Reared In My Woodland Way, I Crushed To-Day, Fanging With Poison Its Own Side Instead Of Me Advancing Where Unseen It Lay. The Purple Racemes Of The Blazing Star And The Cobalt Corymbs Of The Ironweed Are Torches In The Train Of Summer Advancing Over The Hills. The Huckleberries Are Spilling Their Fullness At Her Feet; And The Blackberries And Wild Plums Heap Her Path With Ripening Abundance. Old Earth, In Fact, Is Trying Herself Again In Flowers And Fruit, And The World Is A Very Pleasant Place To Be In. It Is Of Very Little Consequence What We Have To Eat, Or Whether We Have Too Little Or Enough Or Too Much, So Long As We Have Many Beautiful Things To Look Upon. I Don'T Know Any Better Philosophy Than This. Silvered With Sun And Rain The Hills And Vales, O'Er Which A Ragged Rim Of Thunder Trails, Show Like Some Lunar Landscape, Pearl And Frost, Crystaled With Moon-Dust And With Star-Drift Crossed, Misted Of Silver And In Silver Lost. Elderberries Are Now Ripe; Hanging In Huge Clusters Of Polished Purple By The Roadside And Along The Sumach Brake From Which The Brick-Colored Plumes Of The Sumach Are Thrust. Where Are The Snows, The Fragrant Snows, That Weighed With Odorous White Each Elder-Bush But Yesterday? Surely It Seems But Yesterday That I Passed This Way And Stopped A Moment To Gather A Spray From The Masses That Banked This Lane. August 10Th. The Large Golden Touch-Me-Not, Blunt-Spurred And Lemon-Yellow, And The Tall Blue Bellflower, Bluebell Blue, Make A Wilderness Of Color On The Shady Hillside, Changing Kaleidoscopic With The Seasons, Leading Precipitately Over Rocks And Roots To The Creek That, Swollen Clay-Red With Last Night'S Rain, And Haunted Of The Kingfisher And The Small Green Heron, Flows Slowly, Sluggishly Along, Heavy With Soil, As A Life With Sins, Between Its Weedy And Sycamore Banks. There Is A Warm, Damp, Green, Forest Odor Of Wet Earth And Leaves And Weeds Everywhere, And The Path Along The Stream Is Lost In The Dense, High, Succulent Stalks Of The Jewelweed Hung With Its Orange-Colored, Red-Freckled Horns, Brimming With Rain Veritable Vats Of Wild-Honey For The Bees And Butterflies To Drown Themselves In. Cleared Of Woodland, The Hot Hillside Here Is Covered With The Blossoms Of The Wild-Bean; Their Puckered Pink, Dotting Thickly The Thin, Pale Grass And Broom-Sedge, Gives The Hillside The Appearance Of Being Spread With An Old-Fashioned, Single-Patterned Quilt Of Gigantic Proportions. To-Day A Month Ago, August 14Th, I Gathered And Enjoyed The First Huckleberries Of The Season. The Bushes Are Still Freighted Purple With Them, Purpler And Larger And Sweeter Than Those Of A Month Ago. To-Day Also I Gathered Luscious Handfuls Of Wild Blackberries In The Wood-Ways, Along The Roadside. It Seems Rather Late For Berries Such As The Huckleberry-And The Blackberry Now That Pawpaws Are Beginning To Mellow And The Chickasaw Plums To Redden And Summer Is Preparing To Bid Us Good-By. On The Hilltop, No Possible Pool Or Creek In The Vicinity From Which They Might Have Strayed To Their Death, I Find The Road, For The Distance Of Many Yards, Strewn With The Dead Bodies Of A Number Of Small Frogs Not Toads But Small Green Frogs. Can It Be That They Fell With This Morning'S Heavy Rain? That, As I Have Often Heard But Never Believed, Here Has Taken Place A Peculiar, An Unusual Phenomenon, Which Scarcely Seems Credible? Already Are The Seeds In The Green, Burred Pods Of The Strawberry-Bush Orange-Colored; Each One Plumply Packed In Its Own Little Corner, Closely Together, Snugly Awaiting The Fogs And Frosts Of Fall That Shall Split And Divide The Gnarly Capsule, Curling And Peeling It And Laying Bare The Rounded Scarlet Of Its Contents. Seeds That Shall Glow Vermilion With The Approach Of Autumn, While The Pods Crimson Gradually, Rosily As September Drowses On Towards October. The Prim, White Spikes Of The Lady'S-Tresses, Twisted And Curled As If Blown By The Wind, Are Slender Tapers In The Wild Procession, Bannered With Gold And Purple, Of Blossoming Weeds, That Crowds And Cavalcades The Briery Banks Of The Branch That Twinkles And Pearls Under The Overhanging Roots Of A Chestnut Tree Whose Green And Thorny Burrs Already Begin To Strew The Gravel And Grass At Its Foot. The Haw, Too, Ruddying Its Round And Clustered Globes, Against The Dark Green Background Of The Forest, Looks Like A Huge Bunch Of Holly, Emerald Dotted With Ruby, That The Forest Folk Have Placed, In Celebration Of Some Festivity, At The Entrance To The Wood. August 23D. Thrust Over A Tangle Of Blackberry And Green-Brier The Spiraled Spikes Of The False Dragonhead, Or Obedient Plant, Deeply Heliotrope, With Foxglove-Shaped Blossoms, Arrest My Gaze. Each Blossom Is A Rosy Mouth Of Honey, Its Lower Lip And Its Throat Freckled And Streaked With Purplish Pink, On Which The Bees Kiss Themselves To Sleep, Drowsily Rumbling All The While. I Don'T Know Of Any Flower More Distinguished Looking, More Elegantly Splendid, Ardent With The Ardor That Burns And Beats In The Amorous Veins Of Mid-August, And Warm With The Warmth Of Her Own Glowing Bosom, Than Is This Flower, The False Dragonhead, That In A Riot Of Richly Blossoming Weeds, Goldenrod, Blazing-Star, And Trumpet Weed, The Roving Eye Singles Out As One Might A Plumed And Silken Prince Amid His Suite, Magnificent With Velvet And Vair, Of Superbly-Attired Attendants. The Flowering Spurge, With Its Masses Of Myosotis-Like Calyces, Starry-White, Makes Miniature Milky Ways Here And There In The Summer Fields, Quivering With The Visible Heat. Scattered 'Mid The Larger Pink Blossoms Of The Bouncing-Bet, A Strayed Cluster Of This Euphorbia Glints And Glimmers Now And Then Like The Nebula In Lyra, Lost In A Firmament Of Weeds And Flowers. The Curious, Clay-Colored Molecricket, With Its Little Paw-Like Claws Pushing Its Stealthy Way Through The Damp Creek Clay And Sand, Frequently Fools Me With Its Shrill, High Cry, Persistent, Piercing, Coming, Seemingly, From No Discoverable Where. One Would Imagine That The Earth Through Which It Tunnels Its Narrow Gallery Would Smother, Or, At Least, Muffle The Sound, But It Does Not. Shrill And Distinct It Rises In The Summer Silence, Louder Even Than The Twilight Sound Of Its Brother, The Climbing Cricket, Whose Wings Vibrate Pensively, Plaintively, On The Concealing Side Of A Sassafras Or Green-Brier Leaf. The Old Tree, On Which The Man Was Hanged, Sighed To Itself: "Alas! Why Am I Made An Instrument Of Violent Death? What Have I Done That I Should Be So Punished? Made A Participant In Such A Crime? I, Whose Life Has Evermore Been One Of Peace And Love: Whose Mind Has Ever Been Employed With Thoughts Of Mercy: Whose Arms Have Always Been Stretched Forth In Kindness And Protection, Sheltering The Baby Blossoms, The Shy, The Tender, The Timid, The Wild Things Of The Woods, That Love To Nestle And Lie At My Mossy Foot: I, Whose Limbs Have Unselfishly Made, Year After Year, A Quiet Cirque Of Coolth And Comfort For The Weary Traveler, Hot And Dusty From The Road, Refreshing And Restoring Him With The Soothing Whisper, The Lullabying Lilt Of My Leaves: My Verdurous Bosom The Home And Haunt Of Unstudied Song, Birds And Breezes Rejoicing In Its Sheltering And Maternal Amplitude. Ah Me! Henceforward Will Beauty And Love Avoid Me, Frequent Visitors Before! And Fear And Hate Tenant In My Boughs. The Dryad, Who Dwelt In My Heart, Its Beautiful And Innocent Inhabitant, Is Fled Away. No More Will The Loveliness Of Things Within Me And About Me Be As It Was Before. Accursed Am I Among Trees! Accursed With The Curse Of Murder! The Contact And Contamination Of Crime! Accursed With The Stigma Of Slaughter! And Accursed Shall I Ever Remain Through The Crime Of Man, The Most Cruel, The Most Destructive, The Most Ferocious Of All Animals. Would Now That Some Devastating Bolt, Blindingly Launched From Yonder Approaching Cloud, Might Fell Me, Thunderingly, To Earth! Making Me Really That Which I Feel That I Am Become A Horrible Thing, Twisted And Gnarled And Black, Hideously Crippled And Scarred, Blasted And Branded, As The Brow Of Cain,