"It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves. How beautifully they go to their graves!
How gently lay themselves down and turn to mould! Painted of a thousand hues, and fit to make the beds of us living.
So they troop to their last resting place,
light and frisky. They put on no weeds,
but merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting the spot, choosing a lot, ordering no iron fenceā¦
How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when men, with their boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and as ripe, -- with such an Indian-summer serenity will shed their bodies, as they do their hair and nails."
Gm, my people! š§”
#autumnaltints #henrydavidthoreau
