THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER 



them, the horsehairs that were caught 

 anywhere have been carried away by birds 

 for their nests. The trunk is smooth and 

 columnar, hard as iron. A hundred times 

 the mowing grass has grown up around 

 it, the birds have built their nests, the 

 butterflies fluttered by, and the acorns 

 dropped from the oaks. It is a long, long 

 time, counted by artificial hours or by the 

 seasons, but it is longer still in another 

 way. The greenfinch in the hawthorn 

 yonder has been there since I came out, 

 and all the time has been happily talking 

 to his love. He has left the hawthorn 

 indeed, but only for a minute or two, to 

 fetch a few seeds, and comes back each 

 time more full of song-talk than ever. 

 He notes no slow movement of the oak's 

 shadow on the grass; it is nothing to 

 him and his lady dear that the sun, as 

 seen from his nest, is crossing from one 

 great bough of the oak to another. The 

 dew even in the deepest and most tangled 

 grass has long since been dried, and some 



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