108 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



me and see how little it has changed during the 

 forty and more years that I have known it ; and 

 then think back how many thousands of years 

 it has been in the forming, I have but a faint 

 idea of that time which has made up the past. 

 0, how limitless those years, those centuries, 

 those aeons which have gone by ! How ineffably 

 long ! How little can they be comprehended by 

 the human soul. I travel far and wide over the 

 surface of this old earth of ours. It is big, yet 

 little. For a million million years, as man 

 counts time, it has rolled on and on. For a 

 million million years, the matter which makes 

 up my bone and skin and muscle has been a 

 component part of its surface, has been changed 

 to and fro, shifted from rock to plant, from 

 plant to animal, from animal or plant back to 

 earth, to soil, to water. Of organisms uncount- 

 able, of humans perhaps not a few, has that 

 matter been a part, yet always belonging to the 

 mother, ever returning to her bosom. I as a 

 human travel far and wide, roam for a few 

 years freely at will, yet ever come I back to the 

 valleys of my youthful days. For peace doth 

 there abound. For the sky there to-day or to- 

 morrow will be as clear and as blue as it was a 

 million years ago since it is the same sky 

 space illimitable reaching up, up, beyond the 

 mental grasp of any mortal. 



A crackle as of straw stems breaking hear I, 



