Now are come the days of brown leaves. They fall from the trees; they flutter on the ground. ... I hear them tell you of their borning days, when they did come into the world as leaves. ... Today, they were talking of the time before their borning days of the springtime. ... They told how they were a part of earth and air, before their tree-borning days. And now they are going back. They go back to the earth again. But they do not die.
Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, is a succession of changes so gentle and easy we can scarcely mark their progress . . .