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tolerable splendor. Especially here in the 

 waste-land, where weed and brier and tall, 

 feathery sedge are bent, tossed, writhen, 

 curved each and all aglisten in armor of 

 ice. You have no heart to shatter aught so 

 exquisite. The cunningest workman, even 

 of the gnomes, could not shape such crystal 

 plumes as overlie the yellow sedge. Truly 

 it is gold bediamonded. Do not grudge the 

 poor grass its brief splendor. Twelve o' the 

 clock in sunshine will see this Cinderella of 

 the fields once again in rags and tatters. 



Leave the field-path unbroken, and skirt 

 the forest's edge, climbing slow and pain- 

 fully to the hill-top at cost of many falls. 

 Thence the clear valley unrolls before you 

 as a scroll. To eastward what glow, what 

 splendor, what powdering of rainbows, as 

 the sun swims slow above the sea of crystal 

 boughs. Now and again one snaps, topples 

 sharply for a breath's space, then crashes 

 to its fall. Excess of splendor is perilous 

 always. My word for it, the trees will be 

 joyful at end of this gorgeous masking. 



Turn your dazzled gaze to westward. 

 There the pale, dipping verge throws up 

 a crystalline forest-rim, with high-lights of 

 gray lustre, with swimming space-shadows, 

 to accent this world alight. Overhead is a 



