The anxious father aids the group along.
In dreadful silence sleeps the forest now,
Hushed is the prattling of each infant’s tongue;
No sound is there, save that of footsteps low,
Or of the breeze that sighs the leaves among,
Or palfrey’s tramp—whose hoofs, with iron shod,
Now clink on rocks, now deaden on the sod.
XXIX.
The sun at last sunk in the western shade,
And the thick forest cast a darker frown,