i66 MY DEVON YEAR 



Under the grey and golden weather, and through the 

 pageant of the seasons, these deserted villages lie on 

 Time's lap and promise to exist as long as the earth 

 shall. Around them ghosts of the grey old men steal 

 under my vision in this noontide hour. Again they 

 tramp their weary roads, joy in new-born life, and 

 mourn their fallen braves ; again their stone axes slay 

 the bear and wolf, whose bloody pelts grace women's 

 shoulders ; again do young men love and make ordeal 

 by battle for the maidens ; again mothers rock their 

 babies in the shields of warrior sires ; again they dream 

 dreams of their little ones, and of the part they shall 

 presently play in the history of their world ; again the 

 youths clamour to be doing, and the old men find virtue 

 in many words ; again the folk pray to their God 

 behind the thundercloud, sacrifice to him in hour of 

 need, or lift a pagan hymn and thanksgiving when 

 their days are warmed with sunshine and filled with 

 plenty. 



They sleep in night eternal below the roots of the 

 heather ; their tale is told ; their short days numbered ; 

 but the granite that their hands dragged sadly to mark 

 a grave, hopefully to build a home, still stands. 

 " Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art 

 to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor 

 monuments." And seeing the stones scattered here 

 so harmonious, so solemn, and so still, my heart goes 

 out to those vanished shepherds, and I love them 

 across the dark waves of time that roll between their 

 pilgrimage and my own. 



