THE MARSH IN JANUARY 



are here of no use those roses and primroses and 

 opals and all the tints and washes, which, for want 

 of something stronger and better, we are driven 

 to apply to dawn and sundown. We have no 

 colour names for the naked oaks and underwoods 

 till the blue of the afternoon begins to creep on 

 them how much less a colour name for this scene 

 of wreck ! 



With the tangle of ruined plants so dense, the 

 wonder is how the new life can thrust up through 

 it to re-green the whole place in a few weeks from 

 the present starved time. There is so little sign 

 of this material rotting. It is dry and harsh, 

 whistling and scraping together as the wind drives 

 through it, and looking as if it could never crumble 

 into mould. And what nourishment for the green 

 life to be born presently can lie hid in such wilted 

 matter ? It is only when one looks very close that 

 the sure marks are to be traced of the decay which 

 is adding its thin layer of new soil to the marsh. 

 The reed beds hang their flossy heads long after 

 other plants by the water have cast abroad seeds, 

 but the long, loose leaves of the reed are bleached 

 and spotted sooner than the sedges and rough 

 grasses in the midst of the marsh. Now they are 

 bustard-brown, lined and speckled very much as 

 the bustard's feathers, each line and speck a tiny 

 fungus growth. It is the same agency, in more 

 obscure form, which reduces to black mould the 

 whole tangle of this forlorn spot. Here is the 

 primordial farming of Nature. 



7 



