72 THE LAND'S END 



or heard or read of there was one described in a poem 

 called "The Hunter's Vision," which had been lying for 

 years unknown or forgotten in some dusty lumber- 

 room of the brain. I read it first in my early years, 

 and though it was poor poetry it powerfully affected 

 me, partly because I was a hunter myself in those 

 days, although only a boy hunter, and often wandered 

 far into lonely places, and sometimes when faint with 

 heat and fatigue I rested and even fell asleep in 

 the shadow of a bush or of my own horse. The 

 poem relates how the tired hunter at noon sat down 

 to rest on a jutting crag on the steep mountain side 

 where he had been climbing, and how when gazing 

 before him the burning heavens and vast plains of 

 earth, scorched brown by the summer sun, grew misty 

 and dim to his sight, then gradually changed to a 

 vision of his early home. He knew it well the old 

 familiar scene and those who were assembled there 

 to welcome him ; how could he but know them his 

 long dead and long lost ; they were there gazing at 

 him and some were coming with outstretched arms 

 towards him, their faces shining with joy. The very 

 words of the poem came back to me with the picture : 



Forward with fixed and eager eyes 

 The hunter leaned in act to rise. 



But he leaned too far in his eagerness and slipped from 

 the crag and woke, if he ever woke at all, to know for 

 one brief, bitter moment that he was lost for ever. 



It is a story to be told, whether in verse or prose, 

 in the simplest, directest manner ; for is there a more 



