Chapter I: Front Matter

Minstrel Weather

BY
MARIAN STORM

_With Illustrations and Decorations
By Clinton Balmer_

Knowledge, we are not foes.
Long hast thou toiled with me;
But the world with a great wind blows,
Crying, and not of thee!

EURIPIDES

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

MINSTREL WEATHER

Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published November, 1920
K--U

_For_
AMY LOVEMAN

The Minstrel Made His Tune of Hours and Seasons

Dewfall, moonrise, high sweet clover,
Chimney swifts at their twilight play;
Quail call, owl hoot, moth a-hover,
Midnight pale at the step of day.

Star wane, cobweb, brown-plumed bracken;
Morning laughs, with the frost in flower;
Duck flight, hound cry; wild grapes blacken.
Day leaps up at the amber hour.

Sun dark, snowcloud, eaves ice cumbered,
Gray sand piled on a carmine West;
Faint wing, flake dance; winds unnumbered
Swing the cradles where leaf-buds rest.

Wide light, bough flush, gold-fringed meadows,
Berries red in the rippled grass;
Stream song, nest note, dream deep shadows
Drawn back slowly for noon to pass.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. Faces of Janus 1

II. A Woodland Valentine 7

III. Ways of the March Hare 13

IV. The April Moment 19

V. The Crest of Spring 25

VI. Hay Harvest Time 31

VII. The Month of Yellow Flowers 37

VIII. The Mood of August 43

IX. Summer Pauses 48

X. When the Oaks Wear Damson 54

XI. November Traits 60

XII. The Christmas Woods 66

XIII. Landscapes Seen in Dreams 72

XIV. Hiding Places 78

XV. The Play of Leaves 84

XVI. The Brown Frontier 90

XVII. Far Altars 96

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Milky Way Revealed to Lonely Herdsmen _Frontispiece_

The Comforting Symbolism of Firelight
at Play upon Clean Hearths _Facing p._ 4

The Powers of Light " 10

On the Topmost Boughs the Fairies Sleep " 26

The Rejoicing Shout of Coming Summer " 28

The Swooping Bat Darts Noiselessly " 34

Now the Mountaineer's Girl Hurries Indoors
at Nightfall from the Hallooing Specter
of the Wild Huntsman in the Clouds " 54

Baldwins Mellow by Twelfth-night " 58

December Acknowledges an Unpitying
Fate--Anything May Happen " 68

MINSTREL WEATHER