In Berkshire fields . et beginning totinge the eastern hills. One of our ultra-modernAmerican poets has written a poem To a DiscardedSteel Rail, in which he speaks of A smile which men call rust. The rust of the tamaracks is not a smile at thevanity of mans restlessness, however, but at thepleasant, sunny world and the dreaming thoughtsof resurgent sap. I went far afield to-day, through old orchardswhere the deer had been pawing up the snow forburied, frozen apples; through a snow-laden standof young pines, where the aspect was of blobs ofwhite spattered on dark green, and where, no mat-ter ho
In Berkshire fields . et beginning totinge the eastern hills. One of our ultra-modernAmerican poets has written a poem To a DiscardedSteel Rail, in which he speaks of A smile which men call rust. The rust of the tamaracks is not a smile at thevanity of mans restlessness, however, but at thepleasant, sunny world and the dreaming thoughtsof resurgent sap. I went far afield to-day, through old orchardswhere the deer had been pawing up the snow forburied, frozen apples; through a snow-laden standof young pines, where the aspect was of blobs ofwhite spattered on dark green, and where, no mat-ter how low I stooped, the brushed branches peltedme with cold powder; past fox-tracks and rabbit-tracks and the bed of a partridge in the uncoveredleaves—I heard him go whirring off through thesnowy silences before I reached the spot; into clear-ings where the weed-top etchings were renewed, and WEEDS ABOVE THE- SNOW 3°7 invisible water tinkled somewhere under ice; theninto deep woods again, and up the mountain A young moon holding in its crescent the vague wraithof the full sphere It was late when, at last, I pushed back out ofthe forest fringe and set my skee-points valleyward, 308 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS but leaning first on my poles to look down on theghostly radiant, frozen world. A young moon swamover the mountain shoulder, holding in its crescentthe vague wraith of the full sphere, like a bubble ina golden saucer. The light of this moon bathed allthe world in its pale, clear glow. The world wasnot an etching any more. All but the nearest weed-tops had disappeared. But each tree and shrub sentout a pale, firm shadow over the faintly sparklingsnow; the world was a silver-point engraving ofsupreme delicacy, upon a frosted paper; and notthe trees, but their shadows were most alive. Theair was a frozen crystal which no sound snapped,except, far off in the valley, a dull boom from ex-panding ice in the pond, and the disembodied hootof an owl up the ravine behind me. Yet th
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