XII.
“We near’d the wild wood—’twas so wide,
“I saw no bounds on either side;
“Twas studded with old sturdy trees,
“That bent not to the roughest breeze
“Which howls down from Siberia’s waste,
“And strips the forest in its haste,—
“But these were few, and far between470
“Set thick with shrubs more young and green,
“Luxuriant with their annual leaves,
“Ere strown by those autumnal eves
“That nip the forest’s foliage dead,
“Discolour’d with a lifeless red,
“Which stands thereon like stiffen’d gore
“Upon the slain when battle’s o’er,
“And some long winter’s night hath shed
“Its frost o’er every tombless head,
“So cold and stark the raven’s beak480
“May peck unpierced each frozen cheek:
“’Twas a wild waste of underwood,
“And here and there a chestnut stood,
