Round Robin Hood's Barn 



and shock. They have not, they say, the courage 

 for revisiting. It was their mood that tricked 

 out the scene with false adornments. Imagina- 

 tion tends to magnify ; and beauty recollected, is 

 beauty safely kept. 



Theirs is, I think, a rare presumption. Cer- 

 tainly my own imagination is not big enough to 

 hold the spread of the gigantic elm tree that con- 

 fronts me, nor so fine as to conceive an imitation 

 of its perfect curve and droop. It cannot put 

 so delicate an edge upon the blades of cedars, nor 

 place below them where they flank the wall, a 

 blue shadowing so cool. And how should it keep 

 pace with the clouds, how conjure up a brilliance 

 so intense? My memory of comeliness, of radi- 

 ance, of fleetness, may well be measured with 

 reality. I dare take the risk. 



Through lawless growth of clethra and of 

 button-ball, there are a himdred little cow-paths, 

 intersecting, doubling, but each driving wedge- 

 like backward to the pond. This pond is for 

 me a place of high excitement. Suppose for 

 once, I should come out from a lane of bumpy 

 darkness to find it quite unoccupied, emptied of 



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