of te 



white oak, so old that they had become solitary, their 

 comrades having fallen one by one, or else, unable to 

 loose the grip upon the soil that had widened and 

 tightened through centuries, they had died stand- 

 ing. It was upon one of these that the buzzard sat 

 humped. 



Directly in my path stood an ancient swamp white 

 oak, the greatest tree, I think, that I have ever seen. 

 It was not the highest, nor the largest round, per- 

 haps, but individually, spiritually, the greatest. Hoary, 

 hollow, and broken-limbed, its huge bole seemed en- 

 circled with the centuries, and into its green and 

 grizzled top all the winds of heaven had some time 

 come. 



One could worship in the presence of such a tree 

 as easily as in the shadow of a vast cathedral. 



For it had bene an auncient tree, 

 Sacred with many a mysteree. 



Indeed, what is there built with hands that has the 

 dignity, the majesty, the divinity of life? And what 

 life was here ! Life whose beginnings lay so far back 

 that I could no more reckon the years than I could 

 count the atoms it had builded into this majestic 

 form. 



194 



