MIDSUMMER NIGHT 137 

 ocean. The fields and distant oakwood 

 were laved in yellow light, and like a 

 golden sand gleaming in the western sun- 

 light as the sea recedes, the ebbing tide of 

 sunlight left its pools among the woods 

 and the hedges. Far away some children 

 were singing as they went slowly homewards 

 through the closed buttercups and daisies, 

 and their careless cries were in harmony 

 with the evening. 



I sat on a gate and watched the rooks 

 flying over the elm trees in the village 

 below, where all was peace and quiet. The 

 wind sighed through the hedge : a dead 

 leaf moved listlessly, twirling as the wind 

 spun it. The tissues of the tree's dead 

 lung had decayed and sunk into the earth; 

 the winter had been mild, and the invisible 

 hand, composing and decomposing, had 

 not yet touched the filigree web of its 

 brittle frame. On its parent ash tree it 

 hung and quivered, never more to respond 

 to the fire of summer. 



