88 MEADOW GRASSES 



The peewit's song is wild, he knows that all 

 things pass, that the leaves and the flowers 

 will die and nothing remain. 



Now, as he saw me, his voice was harsher, 

 more husky; somewhere among the tufts of 

 spiked grass his young were crouching, 

 depending on their plumage in harmony 

 with the ground to remain unseen. See- 

 oo-sweef, see-oo-sweet, woo, cried the mother: 

 her curled crest was visible against the sky 

 as she turned on broad pinions. 



One morning, when the cuckoo was 

 silent and the young partridges were 

 following their parents through the culms 

 of the meadow-forest, two labourers arrived 

 with the mowing machine, drawn by a 

 pair of chestnut horses. The overture to 

 the midsummer hum was beginning to be 

 heard in the fields: wild and tame bees 

 ceased not from their labours; the wolf 



