THE INCOMING OF SUMMER 17 



were rising, green spearpoints scarce sturdy 

 enough to conceal the nest of the wild duck. 

 Now they were thin and over-sharpened, 

 as though exhausted by the effort of 

 straining upwards to the light to which 

 the sacrificial flowers would be offered in 

 June; then they would be " thick and 

 sappy," annealed; in winter the cattle would 

 tread their dried stems upon the beaten 

 floors of the shippen. 



Over pebbles, wine-stained, gray, rusted 

 and brown, the stream tumbled, around 

 mossy boulders and under branches, swaying 

 dreamily the drowned poa grasses. Brook- 

 trout lurked for the gnats that sometimes 

 brushed the surface with trailing legs. 

 Where the wind was stayed by arch of 

 hazel and willow the midges danced their 

 nuptials, in ghosted assembly rising and 

 falling. The time of the mayflies was not 

 yet, their brief pageant would be heralded 

 by the myriad trumpets of summer's 

 insects; summer was still shyly virginal. No 



