No More Learning

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. They are the brightest trees now in the street.

The large ones on our Common are particularly beautiful. A delicate
but warmer than golden yellow is now the prevailing color, with
scarlet cheeks. Yet, standing on the east side of the Common just
before sundown, when the western light is transmitted through them, I
see that their yellow even, compared with the pale lemon yellow of an
elm close by, amounts to a scarlet, without noticing the bright
scarlet portions. Generally, they are great regular oval masses of
yellow and scarlet. All the sunny warmth of the season, the Indian
summer, seems to be absorbed in their leaves. The lowest and inmost
leaves next the bole are, as usual, of the most delicate yellow and
green, like the complexion of young men brought up in the house. There
is an auction on the Common to-day, but its red flag is hard to be
discerned amid this blaze of color.

Little did the fathers of the town anticipate this brilliant success,
when they caused to be imported from farther in the country some
straight poles with their tops cut off, which they called sugar
maples; and, as I remember, after they were set out, a neighboring
merchant's clerk, by way of jest, planted beans about them. Those
which were then jestingly called bean-poles are to-day far the most
beautiful objects noticeable in our streets. They are worth all and
more than they have cost,--though one of the selectmen, while setting
them out, took the cold which occasioned his death,--if only because
they have filled the open eyes of children with their rich color
unstintedly so many Octobers. We will not ask them to yield us sugar
in the spring, while they afford us so fair a prospect in the autumn.