The Sons shining ice, crystalline, exquisite in radiant 



of the 



North 



Wind 



of the beauty, ineffable, as in a trance, the ecstasy of 

 the Unknown Dreamer. At sundown the 



vast orb of blood-red flame sank over the glens 

 and burned among the aisles of the forest. 

 Looking at the ice-mailed wilderness of bole 

 and bough and branch between me and the 

 sun I saw a forest of living fire, wherein, as 

 a wind stirred and threw sudden shadows, 

 phantoms of flame moved to and fro, or stood, 

 terrible children of light, as though entranced, 

 as though listening, as though looking on Life 

 or on Death. When at last the flame was all 

 gathered up out of the west, and an aura of 

 faint rose hung under the first glittering stars, 

 an extraordinary ocean of yellow spread from 

 the horizons serrated with immense mauve 

 peninsulas and long narrow grass-green lagoons. 

 But the mass of the western firmament was 

 yellow, from the orange-yellow of lichen and 

 the orange-red of the dandelion to the faint 

 vanishing yellows of cowslip and primrose. 

 How lovely then were the trees which had been 

 set on fire by the unconsuming flames of the 

 sunset : what a fairyland, now, of delicate 

 amber and translucent topaz. W hat mysterious 

 colonnades, what avenues of lovely light ! And 

 then, later, to turn, and see the chill grey-blue 

 ice-bound trees behind one filling slowly with 



74 



