TWO SHOTS 



oversight, untouched by the devastating 

 axe, unchanged but by the forest growth 

 of half a century and its seemly and 

 decorous decay. A thicker screen of 

 undergrowth borders the more faintly 

 traced way. The golden-brown shelves 

 of the beech branches sweep more 

 broadly above it, the spires of the ever- 

 greens are nearer the sky, and the yel- 

 low towers of the poplars are builded 

 higher, but they are the same trees and 

 beneath them may yet be seen the gray 

 stumps and trunks mouldered to russet 

 lines, of their ancient brethren who fell 

 when these were saplings. 



The gray - bearded man who comes 

 along the old wood road wonders at the 

 little change so many years have made 

 in the scene of the grand achievements 

 of his youth, and in his mind he runs 

 over the long calendar to assure him- 

 self that so many autumns have glowed 

 and faded since that happy day. How 

 can he have grown old, his ear dull to 

 the voices of the woods, his sight dim 

 with the slowly but surely falling veil of 

 coming blindness, so that even now the 

 road winds into a misty haze just before 

 192 



