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XIV. The Maral Stag. 



' Hidden in the alder bushes 

 There he waited till the deer came, 

 Till he saw two antlers lifted, 

 Saw two eyes look from the thicket, 

 Saw two nostrils point to windward, 

 And a deer came down the pathway, 

 Flecked with leafy light and shadows ; 

 And his heart within him fluttered, 

 Trembled like the leaves above him, 

 As the deer came down the pathway." 



LONGFELLOW. 



WE had arrived at the western end of the ground 

 on which we had been hunting sheep, and one 

 morning, from a high point, I looked down on 

 a green, misty ocean of forest. The ground fell 

 away at my feet in tiers of grassy lawns and 

 spinneys to a great depth. On the other side 

 of the valley hills rose steeply, gloomy with 

 almost unbroken woodland ; while far away in 

 the purple distance, beyond receding coombs and 

 headlands, the glitter of a stream showed for a 

 space and was again lost. Here and there 

 earth's green garments were rent, revealing naked 



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