mountain-ranges at dawn or sunset or moon- The Sons 

 glow I am most entranced by snow in a pine- f ^ e 

 forest. The more so if, as in one my mind 

 recreates for me as I write, there are glades 

 where I can come to a rock whence an over- 

 leaning white hill may be seen as though falling 

 out of heaven, with white mountains beyond, 

 white shoulders lapsing on white shoulders, 

 white peaks rising beyond white peaks, white 

 crests fading into further snowy crests, and, 

 nearer, it may be, glens sinking into glens, no 

 longer a sombre green, but as though stilled 

 avalanches awaiting a magician's unloosening 

 spell. Once, just there, in just such a place, I 

 saw a wonderful sight. The January frosts 

 had gone, and February had come in with the 

 soft sighing of a wind out of the south. The 

 snows faded like morning -mists. But after 

 three days the north wind came again in the 

 night. At dawn it veered, and a light snow 

 fell once more, then thick and moist and flaky, 

 and by noon had changed to rain. But an 

 hour or so later the polar breath once more 

 came over the brows of the hills, and with 

 midwinter intensity. The rain was frozen on 

 every bough, on every branch, on every spray, 

 on every twig, on every leaf, on every frond of 

 bracken, on every spire of reed, on every blade 

 of grass. The world had become cased in 



73 



