ANCESTRAL SHADE 83 



Disdaining to die while consenting to disappear, 

 the great tree, proudly green of head, did not fall head- 

 long, like a giant, in its pride, but subsided silently 

 behind its leafy screen while all the winds were still, 

 and as one who passes away full of years and with un- 

 tarnished conscience. 



Though the saplings and shrubs which fought for 

 its place decently conceal its shattered relics, address- 

 ing glossy leaves to the face of the sun, is it quite vain 

 to expect that its graceful proportions — a true and 

 stately dome — will be transmitted to the most worthy 

 of its descendants ? Or that they will escape for so 

 long a term the many mischances that befall soft- 

 wooded trees ? No ; the bin-gum of the bay was unique. 

 Afar off its flowers assumed a bricky shade, which 

 contrasted with the sage-green background of huge 

 and overtopping melaleucas, while but a strip of creamy 

 sand intervened between its low and spreading branches 

 and the shallow sea, with its varying tints of pale green 



I and blue. So lovely and conspicuous a feature is not 



' to be reconstituted under a century. 



If it be permitted to assume that trees are sentient, 



i that each — since it differs from all others in some 

 material quality and condition — has its individuality, 



I and that one may stand out from the rest as a figure 

 and representative of its age, then was this old monarch 

 which maintained its red robes to the last an examplar 

 of the race whose births, nuptials, pastimes, deaths 

 and burials it witnessed from the date when the good 

 ship Endeavour slowly plodded along the alien coast. 

 The dust of the witness is blending in common decay. 

 A few months and not a trace will be discoverable, 



land what is left of those who rested in its shade ? In 

 the pages of history they will be unchronicled, for were 

 not their lives less beautiful than the life of a tree, 

 and their renown no more durable ? 



