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There Are No Idealists In The Plant World And No Compassion. The Rose And The Morning Glory Know No Mercy. Bindweed, The Morning Glory, Will Quickly Choke Its Competitors To Death, And The Fencerow Rose Will Just As Quietly Crowd Out Any Other Plant That Tried To Share Its Roothold. Idealism And Mercy Are Human Terms And Human Concepts.

-Hal Borland

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There Are No Idealists

Hal Borland

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There Are No Idealists In The Plant World And No Compassion. The Rose And The Morning Glory Know No Mercy. Bindweed, The Morning Glory, Will Quickly Choke Its Competitors To Death, And The Fencerow Rose Will Just As Quietly Crowd Out Any Other Plant That Tried To Share Its Roothold. Idealism And Mercy Are Human Terms And Human Concepts.

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Year's End Is Neither An End Nor A Beginning But A Going On, With All The Wisdom That Experience Can Instill In Us.

Green, The Color Of Growth, Or Surgent Life, Enwraps The Land. New Green, Still As Individual As The Plants Themselves. Cool Green, Which Will Merge As The Weeks Pass, The Summer Comes, Into A Canopy Of Shade Of Busy Chlorophyll.

You Can't Be Suspicious Of A Tree, Or Accuse A Bird Or A Squirrel Of Subversion Or Challenge The Ideology Of A Violet.

There Are No Idealists In The Plant World And No Compassion. The Rose And The Morning Glory Know No Mercy. Bindweed, The Morning Glory, Will Quickly Choke Its Competitors To Death, And The Fencerow Rose Will Just As Quietly Crowd Out Any Other Plant That Tried To Share Its Roothold. Idealism And Mercy Are Human Terms And Human Concepts.

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He Who Travels West Travels Not Only With The Sun But With History.

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Time After Time ... Today's Crisis Shrinks To Next Week's Footnote To A Newly Headline Disaster.

October Is The Fallen Leaf, But It Is Also A Wider Horizon More Clearly Seen. It Is The Distant Hills Once More In Sight, And The Enduring Constellations Above Them Once Again.

He Who Walks May See And Understand. You Can Study All America From One Hilltop, If Your Eyes Are Open And Your Mind Is Willing To Reach. But First You Must Walk To That Hill.

For All His Learning Or Sophistication, Man Still Instinctively Reaches Towards That Force Beyond. Only Arrogance Can Deny Its Existence, And The Denial Falters In The Face Of Evidence On Every Hand. In Every Tuft Of Grass, In Every Bird, In Every Opening Bud, There It Is.

For Anyone Who Lives In The Oak-and-maple Area Of New England, There Is A Perennial Temptation To Plunge Into A Purple Sea Of Adjectives About October.

The Earth's Distances Invite The Eye. And As The Eye Reaches, So Must The Mind Stretch To Meet These New Horizons. I Challenge Anyone To Stand With Autumn On A Hilltop And Fail To See A New Expanse Not Only Around Him, But In Him, Too.

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Summer Ends, And Autumn Comes, And He Who Would Have It Otherwise Would Have High Tide Always And A Full Moon Every Night.

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To Know After Absence The Familiar Street And Road And Village And House Is To Know Again The Satisfaction Of Home.

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Man Is Not An Aquatic Animal, But From The Time We Stand In Youthful Wonder Beside A Spring Brook Till We Sit In Old Age And Watch The Endless Roll Of The Sea, We Feel A Strong Kinship With The Waters Of This World.

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Keeping Promises

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