CORA AND KRONOS. 145 



scription : they are, like all Milton's work, perfect in accuracy 

 of epithet, while consummate in concentration. Exquisite in 

 touch, as infinite in breadth, they gather into their unbroken 

 clause of melodious compass the conception at once of the 

 Columbian prairie, the English cornfield, the Syrian vineyard, 

 and the Indian grove. But even Milton has left untold, and 

 for the instant perhaps unthought of, the most solemn differ- 

 ence of rank between the low and lofty trees, not in magni- 

 tude only, nor in grace, but in duration. 



8. Yet let us pause before passing to this greater subject, to 

 dwell more closely on what he has told us so clearly, the 

 difference in Grace, namely between the trees that rise ' as in 

 dance,' and ' the bush with frizzled hair.' For the bush form 

 is essentially one taken by vegetation in some kind of distress ; 

 scorched by heat, discouraged by darkness, or bitten by frost ; 

 it is the form in which isolated knots of earnest plant life stay 

 the flux of fiery sands, bind the rents of tottering crags, purge 

 the stagnant air of crave or chasm, and fringe with sudden 

 hues of unhoped spring the Arctic edge of retreating desola- 

 tion. 



On the other hand, the trees which, as in sacred dance, 

 make the borders of the rivers glad with their procession, and 

 the mountain ridges statelier with their pride, are all expres- 

 sions of the vegetative power in its accomplished felicities ; 

 gathering themselves into graceful companionship with the 

 fairest arts and serenest life of man ; and providing not only 

 the sustenance and the instruments, but also the lessons and 

 the delights, of that life, in perfectness of order, and un- 

 blighted fruition of season and time. 



9. ' Interitura ' yet these not to-day, nor to-morrow, nor 

 with the decline of the summer's sun. We describe a plant 

 as small or great ; and think we have given account enough of 

 its nature and being. But the chief question for the plant, as 

 for the human creature, is the Number of its days ; for to the 

 tree, as to its master, the words are forever true " As thy 

 Day is, so shall thy Strength be." 



10. I am astonished hourly, more and more, at the apathy 

 and stupidity which have prevented me hitherto from learn- 



