WISTMAN'S WOOD 



[UARDED by great hills that fold each 

 upon the other and fade into distance ; 

 set in granite and briar, brake-fern and 

 the nodding wood-rush, Wistman's Wood 

 lies basking under September sunshine to the song 

 of Dart. Upon a south-facing slope the hoary dwarfs 

 that go to make this forest grow, and each parent 

 oak of the ancient throng was old before the Con- 

 quest. Time and fire have slain, yet the little forest 

 plays its part in the spring splendour of every year, 

 in the leafy and musical hours of high Summer, and 

 in autumnal pageants as the centuries roll. Here, 

 under the Dartmoor hills to-day, sunshine kisses the 

 granite to silver, brightens each withered and distorted 

 trunk, makes the leaf shine, and sets rowan berries 

 glowing through the ambient green. These aged 

 oaks lack not virility, for I see their ancient crowns 

 besprinkled with bright leaflets of the second Spring, 

 with tufts of ruddy foliage, like smiles on the face of 

 frosty age. 



Fruit, too, is borne, and the acorns, flattened some- 

 what within their cups, are healthy and sweet enough ; 

 so the legend that Wistman's harvest is sterile may 



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