THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 77 



And wantoned on his climbing coil. 

 Contending roots fought for the soil 

 Like frightened demons : with despair 

 Competing branches pushed for air. 

 Green conqu^vors from overhead 

 Bestrode the bodies of their dead : 

 The Csesars of the sylvan field, 

 Unused to fail, foredoomed to yield : 

 For in the groins of branches, lo ! 

 The cancers of the orchid grow. 

 Silent, as in the listed ring, 

 Two chartered wrestlers strain and cling; 

 Dumb as by yellow Hooghly's side 

 The suffocating captives died ; 

 So hushed the woodland warfare goes 

 Unceasing ; and the silent foes 

 Grapple and smother, strain and clasp 

 Without a cry, without a gasp. 

 Here also sound Thy fans, God, 

 Here too Thy banners move abroad : 

 Forest and city, sea and shore. 

 And the whole earth. Thy threshing-floor! 

 The drums of war, the drums of peace, 

 EoU through our cities without cease, 

 And all the iron halls of life 

 Ring with the unremitting strife. 



But as we continue our illustrations of struggle 

 among plants we lose the competitive note alto- 

 gether, — ^in cases like the desert plant with- 

 standing exceptional drought, and the northern 

 plant withstanding unusually keen frost. No one 

 doubts that extremes of drought and cold, and 

 the like, press upon the ceaseless endeavour of 

 even vegetable life, and that the plants answer 

 back. They do not take every assault lying 

 down. 



Illustration op the Complexity op the 

 Struggle for Existence. — To convey a broad 



