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The earth rang underfoot like
metal, but overhead was an April sky,
a sky as deep a blue as ever arched
over Venice. Not a cloud flecked it.
The sunlight bathed the brown fields
and russet meadows with plate of gold
and sprinkled the furrows with diamonds
where the frost-crystals lay.
The air was at once mellow and pungent,
like old wine newly spiced. Here
and there, along the shadowed lees of
banks or 'neath the tangles of wayside
bushes, lay little drifts of snow,
winter's seals of possession. The
maples across the ravine were stark
and silent, but along the borders of
the fields sentinel cedars stood erect
and watchful in green uniforms. On
southern slopes the grass still held its
summer hue, and against the warm
gray hole of a withered beech a tiny
woodpecker beat a cheerful tattoo. It
