Pagina 221 de 788

How much do I owe to you, trees of my Homeland! A wretched

huntsman, fleeing from the mockery of my comrades, in exchange

for the game that I missed how many fancies did I capture beneath

your calm, when in the wild thicket, forgetful of the chase, I

sat me down amid a clump of trees! Around me here the greybearded

moss showed silver, streaked with the blue of dark, crushed

berries; there heathery hillocks shone red, decked with

cowberries as with rosaries of coral.-All about was darkness:

over me the branches hung like low, thick, green clouds;

somewhere above the motionless vault the wind played with a

wailing, roaring, howling, crashing thunder; a strange, deafening

uproar! It seemed to me that there above my head rolled a hanging

sea.