120 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



cedar's storeys of flattened foliage, tier above tier ; the 

 green k osiers of two eyots : the light-leaved aspen ; the 

 tall elms, fresh and green; and the green hawthorn 

 bushes give their colour to the water, smooth as if 

 polished, in which they are reflected. A white swan 

 floats in the still narrow channel between the eyots, and 

 there is a punt painted green moored in a little inlet by 

 the lawn, and scarce visible under drooping boughs. 

 Roofs of red tile and dormer windows rise behind the 

 trees, the dull yellow of the walls is almost hidden, and 

 deep shadows lurk about the shore. 



Opposite, across the stream, a wide green sward 

 stretches beside the towing-path, lit up with sunshine 

 which touches the dandelions till they glow in the grass. 

 From time to time a nightingale sings in a hawthorn 

 unregarded, and in the elms of the park hard by a crowd 

 of jackdaws chatter. But a little way round a curve the 

 whole stream opens to the sunlight and becomes blue, 

 reflecting the sky. Again, sweeping round another curve 

 with bounteous flow, the current meets the wind direct, 

 a cloud comes up, the breeze freshens, and the watery 

 green waves are tipped with foam. 



Rolling upon the strand, they leave a line like a tide 

 marked by twigs and fragments of dead wood, leaves, 

 and the hop-like flowers of Chichester elms which have 

 been floated up and left. Over the stormy waters a band 

 of brown bank-martins wheel hastily to and fro, and from 

 the osiers the loud chirp of the sedge-reedling rises above 

 the buffet of the wind against the ear, and the splashing 

 of the waves. 



Once more a change, where the stream darts along 

 swiftly, after having escaped from a weir, and still streaked 

 with foam. The shore rises like a sea beach, and on the 

 pebbles men are patching and pitching old barges which 



