42 Trails to Woods and Waters 



winter nights, as I stood guard at the edge 

 of the forest, when the Pleiades was so cold 

 and glittering that it seemed like a panoply 

 of spear points, and the six points of the Great 

 Bear might have been six icicles? Who shall 

 guess what things I saw when the prowling 

 fox barked in the cavernous aisles of the snow- 

 bound forest, while the weird hooting of an 

 arctic owl woke mysterious echoes in the 

 woods? Who but I knows just how the 

 rabbits play tag of a winter's night, when the 

 moon is at her full, and the crust glints and 

 glistens like a pavement of diamonds? 



" Was I lonely as I stood there, druid-like 

 and hoary, with my coverlet of snow and ice, 

 forsaken by the birds and squirrels, and by 

 even the little wood-mouse that dwelt beneath 

 my roots? 



" Did I long for a sigh of the south wind, 

 and a whisper from the sleeping hepatica, and 

 arbutus; did I yearn for the coming of 

 spring? 



" Ah, who shall say? These are the in- 

 scrutable secrets of nature, that man with all 



