OKEMENT 77 



in one cataract of colour, and the tenebrous air, with 

 its far-flung curtains of rain, were all spread thus 

 simply and directly before me. I watched the cloud 

 movements, where, like melting lead, they poured 

 downward, toppled, spread, and climbed. A sun- 

 beam touched the red earth ten miles off and set it 

 glimmering there in the heart of the gloom like a 

 ruby. Then it vanished again, and the roaming pencil 

 of light went out. 



In the woods by Oke the earth was soft underfoot, 

 and the sweet smell of Spring hung upon the air. 

 The first bluebells were opening, and as each spike 

 took fulness of colour and each blossom made ready, 

 she turned from her upward poise and gently drooped 

 her head to look down at the earth that bore her. 

 Primroses spattered the woodlands with clumps and 

 stars and trailing clusters where they had fallen, 

 flung haphazard from the Mother's hand; wood- 

 sorrels sparkled with their own translucent and frail 

 beauty ; pure water, gushing from the secret haunts 

 of the golden saxifrage and moschatel, spread its 

 crystal above the wreck of the year that was gone, 

 and helped all the dead things to dissolve away into 

 the earth again. So they departed, and the passing 

 of the dark, soaked leaf -drifts, rotting wood, and 

 empty acorn-cups was a part of Spring as proper 

 as the dancing haze of young grass and the blue- 

 bells and fern fronds upspringing with them. Fern- 

 life, indeed, often still clustered in a silky silver 

 knot at the centre of the trailing and dead brown 



