90 Idle Days in Fafaoonia. 



more to level the ancient trees, to invert the soil, 

 and pastm^e his herds on her grasses and flowers. 

 He will subdue the wild thing at last, but not yet ; 

 many years will she struggle to retain her ancient 

 sweet supremacy ; he cannot alter all at once tl:e 

 old order to which she clings tenaciously, as the red 

 man to his savage life. Her attempt to frighten him 

 away has failed. He laughs at her mask of terrors 

 — he knows that it is only a mask ; and it suffocates 

 her and cannot be long endui'ed. She will cast it 

 aside and fight him another waJ^ She will stoop 

 to his yoke and be docile only to betray and defeat 

 him at the last. A thousand strange tricks and 

 surprises will she invent to molest him. In a hun- 

 dred forms she will buzz in his ears and prick his 

 flesh with stings ; she will sicken him with the 

 perfume of flowers, and poison liim with sweet 

 honey; and when he lies down to rest, she will 

 startle him with the sudden apparition of a pair of 

 lidless eyes and a flickering forked tongue. He 

 scatters the seed, and when he looks for the green 

 heads to appear, the earth opens, and lo, an army 

 of long-faced, yellow grasshoppers come forth ! 

 She, too, walking invisible at his side had scattered 

 her miraculous seed along with his. He will not be 

 beaten by her, he slays her striped and spotted 

 ci'eatures ; he dries up her marshes ; he consumes 

 her forests and prairies with fire, and her wild things 

 perish in myriads ; he covers her plains with herds 

 of cattle, and waving fields of corn, and orchards of 

 ii'uit-bearing ti-ees. She hides her bitter wrath in 



