Helen Louise Birch: Up in the Hills

“The earth smells old and warm and mellow, and all things lie at peace.
I too serenely lie here under the white-oak tree, and know the splendid flight of hours all blue and gay, sun-drenched and still.
The dogs chase rabbits through the hazel-brush;
I hear now close at hand their eager cries, now swift receding into the distance, leaving a-trail behind them in the clear sweet air shrill bursts of joy.
There’s something almost drowsy in that waning clamor;
It brings the stillness nearer and a sense of being bodily at one with the old warm earth,
Blessedly at one with the fragrant laughing sun-baked earth,
At one with its sly delightful wicked old laughter. ”