156 IN PAIRING TIME 



the goddess is a shag-headed, dark-browed creature, 

 half-risen from the sea. He is alone ; he seeks no 

 mate. No softening charm smooths out the rugged 

 brows, or lightens the gloom of his deep-set eyes as, 

 with face upturned and swelling cheeks, he trumpets 

 fiercely on his conch to this vision of strange, and as 

 yet unrealised, loveliness. One recognises in him 

 at a glance the aspect of Nature unreclaimed. He 

 was, and was thus, ere Aphrodite rose. Now he 

 seems fierce and froward ; but before there had been 

 neither fierceness nor frowardness. So each new 

 influence brings with it further alienation, and the 

 Nature that was, becomes an increasing mystery to 

 the Nature that is. 



When the Snipe dips, and sends his melancholy 

 laughter along the sky, I see again that fierce-browed 

 merman with his conch, and I seem to hear some 

 ancient cry filled with the wild indifference of a time 

 ere laughter or melancholy came into the earth. 



