228 



Wise folk say he has no volition he but 

 flees before the current set up by your mo- 

 tion. We of the wood know better. There 

 is method in Jack's madness. He knows 

 whereof he does. Science shall not for us 

 resolve him into his original elements turn 

 him to rubbish of gases and spontaneous 

 combustion. Spite his tricksy treachery, 

 he shall stay to light fairies on their revels, 

 scare the hooting owls to silence. 



Come now into the swamp. The waters 

 are shrunken you may walk dry-shod from 

 root to root. See them, writhen, crawling 

 along the gray, hard earth so hard and 

 smooth the leaves have rifted away in long, 

 deep ripples. Here is nothing to check 

 them no enlacement of low tangle only 

 the big, bare-boiled trees, above these ser- 

 pent roots. The winds at play have left 

 earth's face all bare. About the roots it 

 is powder-dry, and hard and gray as stone. 

 Here and there a low space holds yet a 

 deep, brown pool, so clear you can see the 

 thready roots below, so still it mirrors you, 

 the boughs dark above, with dull, gray sky 

 behind. 



These be remnants of spring waters, 

 outer and visible signs of depths and flow- 

 ings below that no summer sun may touch. 



