And a skeleton bird in a rocky pass
To shelter the leaf from the sunny rays;
But it grew till he sheltered them both, alas,
In the hollow skull of a lion, and then in the skull of an ass!
As he lay at noon in a mossy rest,
The vine had shot up all a-tremble with light.
Now he bears it home—(O the doom unguessed!)
On, on, while the hills swing away out of sight—
Till the misty far mountains rise dimly, and pass in a silent flight.
At last when his garden was furrowed, he found