into the mass of night. We passed them. They looked up, squinting
their eyes against the dazzle of the fire. The night closed about us
again.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._



NOVEMBER 2.


THE DROUTH: 1898.

No low of cattle from these silent fields
Fills, with soft sounds of peace, the evening air;
No fresh-mown hay its scented incense yields
From these sad meadows, stricken brown and bare.

The brook, that rippled on its summer way,
Shrinks out of sight within its sandy bed,
Defenseless of a covert from the ray,
Dazzling and pitiless, that beams o'erhead.

The rose has lost its bloom; the lily dies;
Our garden's perfumed treasures all are fled;
The bee no longer to their sweetness flies,
The humming-bird no longer dips his head.

The butterfly--that fairy-glancing thing--