Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn,
In the sweet airs of morn;
One almost looks to see the very street
Grow purple at his feet.

At times, a fragrant breeze comes floating by,
And brings, you know not why,
A feeling as when eager crowds await
Before a palace gate

Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,
If from a beech's heart,
A blue-eyed [v]Dryad, stepping forth, should say,
"Behold me! I am May!"

HENRY TIMROD.

AMONG THE CLIFFS

It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the wind
among the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground.

The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry of
half-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was still
for an instant. The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the
mountain air tasted of the fresh [v]sylvan fragrance that pervaded the
forest, the foliage blamed with the red and gold of autumn, the distant
[v]Chilhowee heights were delicately blue.

That instant's doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeys
stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers
to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The
flock took suddenly to wing,--a flash from among the leaves, the sharp
crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and
down toward the valley.

The young mountaineer's exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He
came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the
depths where his game had disappeared.

"Waal, sir," he broke forth pathetically, "this beats my time! If my
luck ain't enough ter make a horse laugh!"

He did not laugh, however; perhaps his luck was calculated to stir only
[v]equine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth
of twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer
descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley
far below.

As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a
sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.

The sight sharpened Ethan's regrets. He had made a good shot, and he
hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an
idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to
the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the
clif