Nor any ever save through transmuta- 

 tion. See how it hath conspired with the 

 rain and the fine weather with the hail, 

 the snow, the sleet, the fire to melt them, 

 resolve into their original elements these 

 spectres of dead greenwood. Through years 

 the band hath wrought. The great trunks 

 stand aglisten, bare and white, with never a 

 hint that here so late they ruffled it, aflaunt 

 with summer greenery, amask with winter's 

 gemmy boughs. 



Their tangle of tall shadow drops down 

 upon the earth, makes the sunshine palely 

 spectral for all its summer strength. What 

 black, black earth ! Through fire it has 

 gained all the waning trees have lost. As 

 the gentle conspirators flung down bough 

 or trunl:, a great heap blazed on the hill- 

 side, or smouldered to coals and ashes. 

 Ploughs have scattered, not hidden, them. 

 They crunch underfoot at each step on the 

 ghost-land. Well called, is it not, spite of 

 its tall, green corn, with golden tassels so 

 high above your head ? Long ribbons of 

 leaf droop, locking across the rows. A 

 man can but just well reach the yellow and 

 crimson silks that a little later shall be 

 bursting ears. The wind chants through 

 it an organ-peal to waft away to the far, far- 



