A Thousand-Mile Walk 



nificent assemblage of tall grasses, their splen 

 did panicles waving grandly in the warm wind, 

 and making low tuneful changes in the glis 

 tening light that is flashed from their bent 

 stems. 



Not a pine, not a palm, in all this garden 

 excels these stately grass plants in beauty of 

 wind-waving gestures. Here are panicles that 

 are one mass of refined purple ; others that have 

 flowers as yellow as ripe oranges, and stems pol 

 ished and shining like steel wire. Some of the 

 species are grouped in groves and thickets like 

 trees, while others may be seen waving without 

 any companions in sight. Some of them have 

 wide-branching panicles like Kentucky oaks, 

 others with a few tassels of spikelets drooping 

 from a tall, leafless stem. But all of them are 

 beautiful beyond the reach of language. I re 

 joice that God has &quot;so clothed the grass of the 

 field.&quot; How strangely we are blinded to beauty 

 and color, form and motion, by comparative 

 size! For example, we measure grasses by our 

 own stature and by the height and bulkiness 



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