firewood, touchwood, and the crown was gone this many a year: but narrow
the circle a very little to where the indomitable trunk could still
shoot sap from its cruse deep in earth, and there on every side burst
the green foliage in its season countless as the sand. The leaves carved
centuries ago from these very models, though cut in stone, were most of
them mouldered, blunted, notched, deformed: but the delicate types came
back with every summer, perfect and lovely as when the tree was but
their elder brother: and greener than ever: for, from what cause nature
only knows, the leaves were many shades richer than any other tree could
show for a hundred miles round; a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then
their multitude--the staircases of foliage as you looked up the tree,
and could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky. An inverted abyss of color,
a mound, a dome, of flake emeralds that quivered in the golden air.

And now the sun sets; the green leaves are black; the moon rises: her
cold light shoots across one half that giant stem.

How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood, half
ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake jet leaves
tipped with frosty fire!

Now is the still hour to repeat in a whisper the words of the dame of
Beaurepaire, "You were here before us: you will be here when we are
gone."

We leave the hoary king of trees standing in the moonlight, calmly
defying time, and follow the creatures of a day; for, what they were, we
are.