T H E W I N D 159 



voice of gladiiess— how utterly silly the usually beautiful words 

 sounded then, Bryant could have known nothing of mosquitoes 

 —a7id a S777ile and eloquence of beauty-cmstd spoonbills, I 

 thought,— ^72^ she glides into his darker musings with a mild 

 and healing syinpathy that steals avjay their sharpness ere he is 

 aware. I fell into the water with a loud splash. Rising again, 

 and brushing the mosquitoes from my eyes, I continued. When 

 thoughts of the last bitter hour came like a blight over thy 

 spirit, and sad i777ages of the stern ago72y, and shroud, and pall, 

 —my eyes were beginning to swell shut— and, and— breathless 

 darkness— 777ake thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,— wh^t 

 a poem to have picked-G<9 forth, under the open sky, and list 

 to Nature's teachings, while fro?n all around— Earth and her 

 waters, and the depths of air—co7nes a still voice. The word 

 trailed off in a whisper, for a dozen mosquitoes had settled on 

 my lips and were probing all at once. 



Yet in a few days and thee— and thee— the all beholding sun 

 shall see 7io i7iore in all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, 

 —I was not cold but hot; perspiration ran out of every pore— 

 cold groimd, where thy pale forjn was laid, with many tears, 

 nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist thy i7nage— 



A soft light stealing across the water distracted me momen- 

 tarily; it was the moon creeping blood red above the trees; 

 through the stinging hordes before my swelled eyes I could 

 just see the coppery hue lighting the edges of the leaves. Grimly 

 I began again. Earth that nourished thee shall claim thy growth, 

 to be resolved to earth again, and, lost each human trace,— No 

 one would ever find me if I became lost and collapsed in the 

 s-\N2im^.— Surrendering up thine individual being, shalt thou go 

 to mix,— the wild clatter of a heron echoed across the water— 

 forever with the ele772e72ts, to be a brother to the i72se72sible rock 

 and to the sluggish clod— The words slipped from my mind 

 and for a few moments I gave way to a frantic clawing at the 



