48 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



shows once more, when taken in connexion 

 with the belief in a great tree that bore up 

 heaven above the earth, that the thoughts of 

 the child are akin to those of the childhood of 

 the race. And when he continues — 



It was a childish ignorance, 



But now 'tis little joy 

 To know I'm farther off from Heav'n 



Than when I was a boy, 



it is only a record of the passing by the indi- 

 vidual through the same experience through 

 which the race has passed ; which made Words- 

 worth long even for a creed outworn, if only 

 he could feel nature more akin to him, and 

 which sent up into the heavens, now not merely 

 so far away, but illimitably vast, Tennyson's 



cry — 



Will my tiny spark of being wholly 

 Vanish in your deeps and heights ? 



Must my day be dark by reason, O ye 

 Heavens of your boundless nights, 



Rush of Suns, and roll of systems, and 

 Your fiery clash of meteorites ? 



The universe can hardly have seemed greater 

 to the men and women among whom arose 

 such a myth as that of the tree Yggdrasil than 



