SWAYING TREE TOPS 



beside the road, and then we knew it 

 was not spring, but next day would 

 be December. 



In the days just before December 

 there are hours when the quiet of the 

 country becomes most friendly in its 

 voice to those who go with listening 

 ear along its roads. The trees and 

 shrubs are bare, and nothing inter- 

 feres with long views. The secrets 

 that every dense woodland and 

 thicket guarded jealously in June are 

 now seen to have been the river wind- 

 ing through the one, and the nests 

 that birds have forsaken in the other. 

 Across the land at intervals run the 

 dividing roads, along which stand the 

 farmhouses, their maples and elms 

 stripped of foliage, serving poorly 

 as a screen from intrusive eyes. 



[127] 



