The becalmed cloud-ship drifts on the deeps of 



Awakener heaven. 



Woods Nevertheless it is in the woods that the 



miracle may be more intimately seen. The 

 Presence perchance is not universally abroad 

 so much as immediately evident. A hand 

 touched that larch yonder : for why is it so 

 suddenly green, with a greenness as of a sea- 

 wave, or as the wet emerald crystal one finds 

 on the sands of Iona, or, rather, with the 

 softer, moister, the indescribable greenness of 

 the rainbow's breast ? A foot leaned upon the 

 moss beneath that vast oak, on whose southern 

 slopes the russet leaves still hang like a multi- 

 tude of bats along dark ragged cliffs : for why 

 has the cyclamen suddenly burned in a faint 

 flame, there ; why has the sky suddenly come 

 up through the moss, in that maze of speed- 

 wells ? Who rose, yonder, and passed like a 

 phantom westward ? Some one, surely, of 

 the divine race, for the tips of the sycamore- 

 boughs have suddenly burned with a bronze- 

 hued fire. Who went suddenly down that 

 mysterious alley of dim columnar pines, stirring 

 the untrodden silent ways ? For, look, the air 

 is full of delicate golden dust. The wind-wooer 

 has whispered, and the pine tree has loved, 

 and the seed of the forests to come floats like 

 summer-dust along the aerial highways. 



116 



