aerial breathfulness, frail as thistledown, of The Clans 





the quaking-grass. How it loves the wood's- f 

 edge, this last, or sheltered places by the 

 hedgerows, the dream - hollows of sloping 

 pastures, meadow -edges where the cow- 

 parsley whitens like foam and the meadow- 

 sweet floats creamwhite and the white 

 campions hang in clotted froth over the long 

 surge of daisies : or, where, like sloops of 

 the nautilus on tropic seas, curved blossoms 

 of the white wild -rose motionlessly suspend 

 or idly drift, hardly less frail less wantonly 

 errant than the white bloomy dust of the 

 dandelion. 



Caran-cheann-air-chrith, ' little friend of the 

 quaking-grass,' is one of the Gaelic names of 

 the wagtail, perhaps given to it because of a 

 like tremulous movement, as though invisible 

 wings of gossamer shook ever in a secret wind. 

 Or given to it, perhaps, because of a legend 

 which puts the common grass, the quaking- 

 grass, the wagtail, the cuckoo, the aspen, and 

 the lichen in one traditional company. In 

 the Garden of Gethsemane, so runs the Gaelic 

 folk-tale as I heard it as a child, all Nature 

 suddenly knew the Sorrow of Christ. The 

 dew whispered it : it was communicated in 

 the dusk: in pale gold and shaken silver it 

 stole from moon and star into the green dark- 



33 D 



