The loveliest things of Autumn’s pack In his mottled coffers lay:
Red mountain-berries,
sweet as cherries,
Sloes blue and black
He hung upon every spray.
On the top of the hills in the West stood the Prince of Autumn and surveyed the land with his serious eyes.
 
His hair and beard were dashed with grey and there were wrinkles on his forehead. But he was good to look at still and straight and strong. His splendid cloak gleamed red and green and brown and yellow and flapped in the wind. In his hand he held his horn.
 
He smiled sadly and stood a while and listened to the fighting and the singing and the cries. Then he raised his head, put the horn to his mouth and blew a lusty flourish:
 
Summer goes his all-prospering way,
Autumn’s horn is calling.
Heather dresses the brown hill-clay,
Winds whip crackling across the bay,
Leaves in the keep falling.
All the trees of the forest shook from root to top, themselves not knowing why. All the birds fell silent together. The stag in the raised his antlers in surprise and listened. The poppy’s flew before the wind.
 
But high on the mountains and on the bare hills and low down in the , the heather burst and blazed purple and glorious in the sun. And the bees flew from the faded flowers of the meadow and hid themselves in the heather-fields.
 
But Autumn put his horn to his mouth again and blew:
 
Autumn lords it with banners bright
Of leaves held o’er him,
Summer’s eternal fight,
Winter, wild and white,
While the birds flee before him.
The Prince of Summer stopped where he stood in the valley and raised his eyes to the hills in the West. And the Prince of Autumn took the horn from his mouth and bowed low before him.
 
“Welcome!” said Summer.
 
He took a step towards him and no more, as befits one who is the greater. But the Prince of Autumn came down over the hills and again bowed low.
 
They walked through the valley hand in hand. And so radiant was Summer that, wherever they passed, none was aware of Autumn’s presence. The notes of his horn died away in the air; and one and all recovered from the that had passed over them. The trees and birds and flowers came to themselves again and whispered and sang and fought. The river flowed, the rushes murmured, the bees continued their summer orgy in the heather.
 
But, wherever the princes stopped on their progress through the valley, it came about that the turned yellow on the side where Autumn was. A little leaf fell from its stalk and fluttered away and dropped at his feet. The nightingale ceased singing, though it was eventide; the cuckoo was silent and flapped restlessly through the woods; the stretched himself in his nest and looked towards the South.
 
But the princes took no .
 
“Welcome!” said Summer again. “Do you remember your promise?”
 
“I remember,” answered Autumn.
 
The Prince of Summer stopped and looked out over the kingdom where the noise was gradually :
 
“Do you hear them?” he asked. “They must die and they do not know it. Now do you take them into your gentle keeping.”
 
“I shall bring your produce home,” said Autumn. “I shall watch carefully over them that dream, I shall cover up lovingly them that are to sleep in the mould. I will warn them thrice of Winter’s coming.”
 
“It is well,” said Summer.
 
They walked in silence for a time, while night came forth.
 
“The honeysuckle’s petals fell when you blew your horn,” said Summer. “Some of my children will die at the moment when I leave the valley. But the nightingale and the cuckoo and the stork I shall take with me.”
 
Again the two princes walked in silence. It was quite still; only the in the old dead oak.
 
“You must send my birds after me,” said Summer.
 
“I shall not forget,” replied Autumn.
 
Then the Prince of Summer raised his hand in farewell and bade Autumn take possession of the kingdom:
 
“I shall go to-night,” he said. “And none will know save you. My splendour will linger in the valley for a while, so that you may come more gently to those to whom you bring death. And by-and-by, when I am far away and my is forgotten, the memory of me will revive once more with the sun and the pleasant days.”
 
Then he strode away in the night.
 
But from the high tree-top came the stork on his long wings; and the cuckoo fluttered out of the tall woods; and the nightingale flew from the with his full-grown young.
 
The air was filled with the soft murmuring of wings.
 
The Siskin couple sat and chatted on the edge of the empty nest:
 
“Do you remember the day when I courted you?” he asked. “I had and smartened myself as best I could and you also looked sweet. The had just come out: I never saw the wood so green in all my life!”
 
“How you sang!” said she.[110] “Sing like that again; then perhaps I will accept you once more.”
 
But the siskin sadly shook his head:
 
“My voice is gone,” he said.
 
“Do you remember when we built the nest?” she asked, a little later. “How it was and how nice! I shall never have so fine a house again. Just look how ugly and dilapidated it is!”
 
“The young ones did that,” he replied.
 
“Yes, but do you remember the morning when they came out of the eggs?” she asked; and her small black eyes beamed. “How sweet they were and how naked and brown! I could not leave them for a minute but they screamed.”
 
“And then they got their feathers!” he said and . “Grand siskins, all four of them. Do you remember the day they first out of the nest?”
 
She remembered. She remembered many more things and reminded him of them all. And, when there was nothing left to say, they moved closer to each other and sat silent; and each apart thought of the old days.
 
And all the others were like the siskins.
 
The flowers towards one another and whispered about the golden time when they stood with a bee in every . So eager were they to tell their stories that none could wait for the other to finish. All over the meadow, it sounded:
 
“Do you remember...? Do you remember...?”
 
The flies and the bees sat for half the day and idled and talked intimately and of the beautiful summer days when they hummed and buzzed and in the meadow. The trees waved their branches softly to one another and told long stories of their green youth. The rushes put their brown tips together and dreamt the whole thing over again. The little brown mice sat in the hedge, in the evening sun, and told the children the story of their courtship.
 
“Do you remember...? Do you remember...?”
 
In the midst of the valley stood the Prince of Autumn, with his horn in his hand. But none saw him.
 
Then the crow flew out of the wood on flapping wings and screamed:
 
“Past! Past! How can you care to talk of those old things? It’s all past! Past! Past!”
 
Echo sang from the hills:
 
“Past! Past! Past!”
 
And Echo whispered in the rushes and hummed in the river and sounded in all that lived in the land. They all then and there understood that summer was over. They stopped in the middle of their stories and listened and chimed in:
 
“Past! Past! Past!”
 
And suddenly they all saw the Prince of Autumn, as he stood there in the midst of them, in his motley cloak. They stared at him with frightened eyes and at one another.
 
But he put his horn to his mouth and blew till it rang over the valley:
 
Autumn’s horn blew a lusty chime,
For the first time, for the first time!
Interpret well its warning:
September night,
Breed mushrooms white,
Lay midge in mould,
Plait bronze with gold
For green tree-tops’ .
He looked over the valley with his serious eyes. But, when the last echo of the notes had died away, he spread his motley cloak in the sun and laughed and nodded.
 
And, while the sky was higher than it had ever been and the air mild and the lake blue and the mountains stood out clear on the horizon, the land passed dutifully under Autumn’s .
 
It had indeed begun on the night when Summer went away, with a yellow leaf here and a brown leaf there, but none had noticed it. Now it went at a quicker pace; and, as time wore on, there came ever more colours and greater splendour.
 
The lime-trees turned bright yellow and the beech bronze, but the elder-tree even blacker than it had been. The bell-flower rang with white bells, where it used to ring with blue, and the chestnut-tree blessed all the world with its five yellow fingers. The mountain-ash shed its leaves that all might admire its pretty berries; the wild rose nodded with a hundred hips; the Virginia creeper broke over the hedge in blazing flames.
 
The grew soft and green; and the toadstools shot up in the night. Queer, soft, pale creatures[117] they were and poisonous and they looked. But some of them had a scarlet hat on and all were overjoyed with life.
 
But the siskin could find no flies and was pitifully.
 
“Then go away!” said the Prince of Autumn. “Your time is over; and I have plenty of birds left.”
 
Away flew siskin and linnet and many with them. But Autumn put his horn to his mouth and blew:
 
The loveliest things of Autumn’s pack
In his motley coffers lay:
Red mountain-berries,
Hips sweet as cherries,
Sloes blue and black,
He hung upon every spray.
And blackbird and thrush in the copsewood, which gleamed with berries, and a thousand sparrows kept them company.
 
At night, it was quite still. The stag went into the meadow with noiseless steps and lifted his antlers and reconnoitred. The bird sat and slept somewhere with his head under his wing; the wind dared hardly whisper among the faded foliage. The stars twinkled far and peacefully.
 
Then the leaves fell.
 
And, as they broke from the branches and whirled through the air and fell to the ground, they sighed softly and filled the forest with strange, sounds. But none could hear them who had not seen his own hopes die.
 
But, next morning, those which were left gleamed brighter still and spread themselves and laughed in the sun, as if they had never amused themselves so well. The birch stood on the ; and the tiny little plants in the hedge sported their red leaves. The beech and the oak changed one thing or another in their dress each day, till they became more fantastic than ever. The falling leaves flew from tree to tree and remained lying there, till the whole at last............