Explore "The End of the Summer" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The birds laugh loud and long together / When Fashion's followers speed away / At the first cool breath of autumn weather. / Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay! / When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over / Both look their passion through sun-kissed space, / As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover / Might each gaze into the other's face.
Oh! this is the time when careful spying / Discovers the secrets Nature knows. / You find when the butterflies plan for flying / (Before the thrush or the blackbird goes), / You see some day by the water's edges / A brilliant border of red and black; / And then off over the hills and hedges / It flutters away on the summer's track.