suspense, like one of the faery javelins of Where 

 Midir which in a moment could be withheld the Forest 

 in mid - flight The squirrel swings from Murmurs - 

 branch to branch : the leveret shakes the 

 dew from the shadowed grass : the rabbits 

 flitter to and fro like brown beams of life : 

 the robin, the chaffinch, the ousel, call through 

 the warm green-glooms : on the bramble-spray 

 and from the fern-garth the yellow-hammer 

 reiterates his gladsome single song : in the 

 cloudless blue fields of the sky the swifts 

 weave a maze of shadow, the rooks rise and 

 fall in giddy ascents and descents like black 

 galleys surmounting measureless waves and 

 sinking into incalculable gulfs. 



Then the forest wearies of this interminable 

 exuberance, this daily and nightly charm of 

 exultant life. It desires another spell, the 

 enchantment of silence, of dreams. One day 

 the songs cease : the nests are cold. In the 

 lush meadows the hare sleeps, the corncrake 

 calls. By the brook the cattle stand, motion- 

 less, or with long tails rhythmically a-swing 

 and ears a -twitch above the moist amber- 

 violet dreamless eyes. The columnar trees are 

 like phantom -smoke of secret invisible fires. 

 In the green -glooms of the forest a sigh is 

 heard. A troubled and furtive moan is audible 

 in waste indiscoverable places. The thunder- 



3 



