Angels and Women (1924)

sod, the empty stubble rustled in the wind,the untouched orange and fig, decaying onthe ground, went back into the parent stemto bloom again and again in vernal beauty.Sound there was none, but sighing of thewinds as they swept mournfully across thelonely Eden; no motion save that of lightand shadow flitting over tenantless plains.Silence and solitude forever brooded there.A belt of funeral yews, under-grown with athicket of brush-thorns, hedged in this landof supernal but desolate beauty. Directlyin front of the Warder’s Rock was a narrowopening bounded by two ancient yews ofmagnificent proportions; between thesetrees had sprung up a gigantic vine, whosewide-spread branches, twined and interwoven,made a vast impenetrable screen,closing the gate-way of the Garden of theLord. The tangles of this deadly vine hadformed themselves into spectral characters,which, facing outward, perennially renewedthe -- inscription