Over the Hiils and Far Away 



enough even for a poet. He came here once in 

 a motor car, and sat out in the golden road while 

 I went into the garden to tell my flowers that a 

 real poet was on the other side of the hedge. He 

 and the pines had a great conversation, and under- 

 stood each other well ; they belonged to the same 

 generation and came into the world about the 

 same time, and the pines could understand all 

 that he had been and suffered, for often they, too, 

 have had those who have no eyes to see in their 

 midst, and always they have sung : 

 " Overhead, overhead ! " 



to deaf ears. 



And he, as he wrote of Shakespeare : 



■•. . . knew thee, Mother Earth: unsoured 

 He knew thy sons, He probed from hell to hell 

 Of Jiuman passions, but of love deflowered 

 His wisdom ivas not, for he knew thee toell. 

 Thence came the honeyed comer at his lips. . . . 



He was an old man when I knew him, and yet 

 he was the youngest man I ever met. His laughter 

 was a great shout of youth, his voice as free and 

 swinging as the wind in the pines. It was the 

 proudest moment of the garden's history when he 

 came to gaze on it ; and the pines often talk of 

 it, and he has become a legend among the herons 

 over by the lake, and more than once on my hill 



