" Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out in Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens where snow-wreaths lingered; and the "mist of green" was on the woods and in the valleys.
Presently Anne stepped out bareheaded into the chill autumn dusk; very determinedly and steadily she took her way down through the sere clover field over the log bridge and up through the spruce grove, lighted by a pale little moon hanging low over the western woods.
It is not growing like a tree , In bulk doth make man better be; ,; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, ,, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: ; A lily of a day , Is fairer far in may, ,; Although it fall and die that night— , It was the plant and flower of light.
I have reached illusion's end , In this grove of falling leaves, , Each leaf a signal of past joy, , Drifting sere within my heart.
