286 THE RING OF NATURE 



DECEMBER 

 II 



DEAD LOW 



' "XT OW is the winter of our discontent.' The 

 1 \l meadow wherein we seem to have dreamed 

 that cowslips gemmed it with throbbing green 

 and daintily confectioned blossom, is frozen as 

 hard and as barren as city pavement. The soil 

 that in summer runs through the fingers with a 

 fatness that we know is life, is as dead as marble 

 and far less beautiful. There is not a stroke of 

 new grass, the frozen blades that sparsely decorate 

 the earth having the toughness and tastelessness 

 of worsted. The world rolls dead and scorched 

 with frost under a barren, sunless sky. 



True, there is still each day a few hours' view of 

 the sun. He peeps above the horizon at the 

 east, skims over to the south, and there goes down 

 with an air of not quite knowing whether it is 

 worth while to come again to-morrow for another 

 look at this hopeless end of the globe. He melted 

 a little of the rime from the grass at mid -day, but 

 it has come back again even while he is still to 



