The bracken upon the headland has rusted, and the gorse is brown and sapless. Never has there been such an untarnished sky fused with the sea. Those stately swans, the clouds, have sailed over the marge of the earth, leaving not even a downy feather to tell of their heavenly passage. Somewhere in a brake of blackthorn a robin sings frailly, while a red kestrel hangs above for sight of vole or mouse. Croaking deeply a raven wings towards a gully in the mainland where the shepherd pitches his dead sheep. The robin is quiet, and there is no other sound except the croak of the carrion raven: only the mellow sun of autumn, and the grape-frosty air, and the silence. But listen! that sweet birdsong must surely be of the nightingale. There is the low trill, the fluting cadence, the reedy melody that sinks away into silence. But the nightingale does not come to the West Country; only in my mind do I listen to the old and loved voice. The song of the nightingale is so joyous, so essentially pure spirit, that the listening heart feels an emotion beyond that of earthly life. It is passion more chaste than any Hellenic ideal--it is the voice of the wind, the meaning of the green leaf, the purpose of the seed, the secret of the star. But now as I listen the wistful song, only a little less perfect than Philomel’s own, brings poignantly the present before me. However I would dream, it is now October; I can read _The Pageant of Summer_ during the dreariness of autumn’s chill and winter’s murk; but it is not the same. Change is bitter to me, whether of falling leaf or friendship. Leaves must fall, but friends can be steadfast; yet everywhere is bitter change. For many days now the voice has run through the grape-frosty air; always the voice, but never sight of the singer. For hours and days I have sought to find the singing bird, but in vain, in vain. There is genius in the song--a hymn to the life-giving sun, to the light. Somewhere a rabbit screams in an iron gin; the bird sings on.