THE WINTER CAMP-FIRE 



som sparks, that drift away in its own 

 currents like red petals of spent flowers. 



It paints pictures, some weird or 

 grotesque, some beautiful, now of ghosts 

 and goblins, now of old men, now of 

 fair women, now of lakes crinkled with 

 golden waves and towers on pine-crowned 

 crags ruddy with the glow of sunset, 

 sunny meadows and pasture lands, with 

 farmsteads and flocks and herds. 



The ancient trees that rear themselves 

 aloft like strong pillars set to hold up 

 the narrow arch of darkness, exhale an 

 atmosphere of the past, in which your 

 thoughts, waking or sleeping, drift back- 

 ward to the old days when men whose 

 dust was long since mingled with the 

 forest mould moved here in the rage of 

 war and the ardor of the chase. Shad- 

 owy forms of dusky warriors, horribly 

 marked in war paint, gather about the 

 camp-fire and sit in its glare in voice- 

 less council, or encircle it in the gro- 

 tesquely terrible movement of the war 

 dance. 



Magically the warlike scene changes 

 to one of peace. • The red hunters steal 

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