320 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



beautiful the pure white mantle, that is gracefully thrown 

 over me, concealing in one part, in another revealing, my 

 shining foliage a drapery of snow, which no art of man 

 can emulate. 



You know not how many peaceful ones are sheltered 

 among my branches : small birds, that sing merrily to 

 repay my care of them when the frozen streamlet is un- 

 bound and primroses are seen beside her margin ; the 

 rabbit has made her burrow among my roots, and the hare 

 crouches beneath the sheltering branches of my tributary 

 box-trees; dormice are sleeping here, curled up in their 

 soft warm nests; and partridges and pheasants are here 

 also. Look around; the whole country is covered with 

 snow ; here and there may be seen cottage-roofs, white as 

 the dazzling fields, with icicles depending from the eaves, but 

 they afford no shelter to weary or timid ones ; neither can 

 single trees, which stand with their bare branches against 

 a wintry sky ; nor yet yonder wood, which presents in its 

 aggregate innumerable dark-coloured columns fringed with 



