Deep river
pools and deceitful morasses, over which the cotton grass flutters its
white tassels, are thought to be the "gates" of their country, where
they possess diminutive flocks and herds of their own. Malicious, yet
hardly demoniacal, they are precisely Dryden's "spirits of a middle
sort"--

"Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,
Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell"

--a character which cannot, however, be assigned to their unearthly
companions, the wish-hounds. These have no redeeming tinge of white, and
belong to the gloomiest portion of the underworld.'

A true lover of the moor, and very sensitive to its element of mystery,
Mr King has put what he has seen and imagined into verse that must be
most appreciated by those who know the Forest best:

THE FOREST OF THE DARTMOORS.

The purple heather flowers are dark
In the hollow of the hill,
Though far along each rocky peak
The sunlight lingers still;
Dark hang the rushes o'er the stream--
There is no sound below,
Save when the fern, by the night's wind stirred.
Waves gently to and fro.

Thou old wild forest! many a dream
Of far-off glamoury,
Of gentle knight and solemn sage,
Is resting still on thee.
Still float the mists across the fells,
As when those barons bold,
Sir Tristram and Sir Percival,
Sped o'er the weary wold.

* * * * *

Then through the glens of the folding hills.
And over the heath so brown,
King Arthur leads his belted knights
Homewards to Carlyoun;
A goodly band, with long white spears,
Upon their shoulders set,
And first of all that Flower of Kings
With his golden coronet.

And sometimes, by the clear hill streams,
A knight rides on alone;
He rideth ever beside the river,
Although the day be done;
For he looketh toward the western land
Where watcheth his ladye,
On the shore of the rocky Cornewayle,
In the castle by the sea.

* * * * *

And now thy rocks are silent all,
The kingly chase is o'er,
Yet none may take from thee, old land,
Thy memories of yore.
In many a green and solemn place,
Girt with the wild hills round,
The shadow of the holy cross
Yet sleepeth on the ground.

In many a glen where the ash keys hang
All golden 'midst th