When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery
pleasant
to walk
in.
in.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
Here is not
merely the plain yellow of the grains, but nearly all the colors that
we know, the brightest blue not excepted: the early blushing maple,
the poison sumach blazing its sins as scarlet, the mulberry ash, the
rich chrome yellow of the poplars, the brilliant red huckleberry, with
which the hills' backs are painted, like those of sheep. The frost
touches them, and, with the slightest breath of returning day or
jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down!
The ground is all parti-colored with them. But they still live in the
soil, whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that
spring from it. They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years,
by subtle chemistry, climbing by the sap in the trees; and the
sapling's first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its
crown, when, in after years, it has become the monarch of the forest.
It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and
rustling leaves. How beautifully they go to their graves! how gently
lay themselves down and turn to mould! --painted of a thousand hues,
and fit to make the beds of us living. So they troop to their last
resting-place, light and frisky. They put on no weeds, but merrily
they go scampering over the earth, selecting the spot, choosing a lot,
ordering no iron fence, whispering all through the woods about
it,--some choosing the spot where the bodies of men are mouldering
beneath, and meeting them half-way. How many flutterings before they
rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how
contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to
lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new
generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach
us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when men, with
their boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and as
ripe,--with such an Indian-summer serenity will shed their bodies, as
they do their hair and nails.
When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk
in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves. Here are no
lying nor vain epitaphs. What though you own no lot at Mount Auburn?
Your lot is surely cast somewhere in this vast cemetery, which has
been consecrated from of old. You need attend no auction to secure a
place. There is room enough here. The loosestrife shall bloom and the
huckleberry-bird sing over your bones. The woodman and hunter shall be
your sextons, and the children shall tread upon the borders as much as
they will. Let us walk in the cemetery of the leaves; this is your
true Greenwood Cemetery.
[Illustration: _Fallen Leaves_]
THE SUGAR MAPLE
But think not that the splendor of the year is over; for as one leaf
does not make a summer, neither does one falling leaf make an autumn.
The smallest sugar maples in our streets make a great show as early as
the fifth of October, more than any other trees there. As I look up
the main street, they appear like painted screens standing before the
houses; yet many are green. But now, or generally by the seventeenth
of October, when almost all red maples and some white maples are bare,
the large sugar maples also are in their glory, glowing with yellow
and red, and show unexpectedly bright and delicate tints. They are
remarkable for the contrast they often afford of deep blushing red on
one half and green on the other. They become at length dense masses of
rich yellow with a deep scarlet blush, or more than blush, on the
exposed surfaces.
merely the plain yellow of the grains, but nearly all the colors that
we know, the brightest blue not excepted: the early blushing maple,
the poison sumach blazing its sins as scarlet, the mulberry ash, the
rich chrome yellow of the poplars, the brilliant red huckleberry, with
which the hills' backs are painted, like those of sheep. The frost
touches them, and, with the slightest breath of returning day or
jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down!
The ground is all parti-colored with them. But they still live in the
soil, whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that
spring from it. They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years,
by subtle chemistry, climbing by the sap in the trees; and the
sapling's first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its
crown, when, in after years, it has become the monarch of the forest.
It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and
rustling leaves. How beautifully they go to their graves! how gently
lay themselves down and turn to mould! --painted of a thousand hues,
and fit to make the beds of us living. So they troop to their last
resting-place, light and frisky. They put on no weeds, but merrily
they go scampering over the earth, selecting the spot, choosing a lot,
ordering no iron fence, whispering all through the woods about
it,--some choosing the spot where the bodies of men are mouldering
beneath, and meeting them half-way. How many flutterings before they
rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how
contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to
lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new
generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach
us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when men, with
their boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and as
ripe,--with such an Indian-summer serenity will shed their bodies, as
they do their hair and nails.
When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk
in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves. Here are no
lying nor vain epitaphs. What though you own no lot at Mount Auburn?
Your lot is surely cast somewhere in this vast cemetery, which has
been consecrated from of old. You need attend no auction to secure a
place. There is room enough here. The loosestrife shall bloom and the
huckleberry-bird sing over your bones. The woodman and hunter shall be
your sextons, and the children shall tread upon the borders as much as
they will. Let us walk in the cemetery of the leaves; this is your
true Greenwood Cemetery.
[Illustration: _Fallen Leaves_]
THE SUGAR MAPLE
But think not that the splendor of the year is over; for as one leaf
does not make a summer, neither does one falling leaf make an autumn.
The smallest sugar maples in our streets make a great show as early as
the fifth of October, more than any other trees there. As I look up
the main street, they appear like painted screens standing before the
houses; yet many are green. But now, or generally by the seventeenth
of October, when almost all red maples and some white maples are bare,
the large sugar maples also are in their glory, glowing with yellow
and red, and show unexpectedly bright and delicate tints. They are
remarkable for the contrast they often afford of deep blushing red on
one half and green on the other. They become at length dense masses of
rich yellow with a deep scarlet blush, or more than blush, on the
exposed surfaces.
