I70 GARRYOWEN 



through the leaves ; the road steadfast and silent, 

 with a silence which the motor horn cannot break, 

 a silence that has been growing and feeding upon 

 life since the time of Tiberius. 



The place is tremulous and vibrating with life; 

 the wagtail by the water, the water itseK, the 

 leaves dancing to the breeze and the birds amidst 

 the leaves, the lost butterfly, the gauze-blue 

 dragonfly, the midges in their interminable 

 dance, all keep up an accompaniment to the flute- 

 like tune of the river. Then, as one muses, the 

 thousand snippets of beauty and life, gay and 

 free and ephemeral, that make up the beauty of a 

 summer's afternoon, suddenly, as if touched by a 

 magic wand, lose their ephemeral nature and be- 

 come their immortal selves. 



" They were old when I was young. The wind 

 blew their songs in the faces of the legionaries; 

 before the phalanx flew the butterfly, and the 

 water wagtails before the gHttering eagles." 



Thus speaks the road in answer to the river, 

 making the charm of this place, a charm felt even 

 by the teamsters of a summer's afternoon as they 

 halt their horses for a rest. 



On either side of the road, down here, stretch 

 woods — mellow-hearted EngHsh woods, nut 

 copses, beech glades, willow brakes — the home of 

 the squirrel and the pheasant and the wood-dove. 

 The corkscrew note of the cock-pheasant answers 

 the poetical lamentation of the dove ; that caress- 

 ing sound, soothing, sleep-drugged and fatuous. 



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