225 



dry, dead earth. One hand, the waste comes 

 down, the slant of it bare and galled, criss- 

 crossed with net of gullies through and 

 over its pale clay. Now and again a starve- 

 ling cedar has got root-hold, and leans des- 

 olately atilt over the narrow yawning. What 

 dull funereal hue the tree has ! Seedlings 

 but mid-leg high have no character of youth. 

 You see age, sighing and sombre, in the 

 lift, the branching, of them, as plain as in 

 the scraggy parent stem, whose writhen 

 boughs show gray and skeletonwise, through 

 its sparse green tufts, so niggardly beset with 

 blue berries. 



Pity the poor tree. Here it is an alien 

 growth. This cold clay deadens, stunts it. 

 No wonder it is forever sighing for the rich, 

 black, rocky hill -sides, where it comes to 

 strength, use, beauty such growth as might 

 honor even cedars of Lebanon. Fate, in 

 shape of winter birds, set it here, where life 

 is but one long death ; where only it cum- 

 bers the waste, endures as best it may the 

 burden of the years. 



Nearer the swales wave plumy pennons. 

 Sedge covers them breast-high, all atangle 

 with long briers and wild-creeping things. 

 Up through it dead mullein stalks thrust 

 their tall stiffness. All about is a tossing 



