MEADOW GRASSES 9 3 



wandering in those fields. No other meadows 

 can be the same, the flowers there were 

 fairer, the sunlight brighter as it followed the 

 clouds. With so many summers burnt 

 out in autumnal fires there is a dearer 

 thought for every flower of blue chicory: 

 and each germander speedwell, so common 

 in the hedgerow, has in its little petals 

 something of the mystery of the sky. The 

 breath of all the springtimes, the light and 

 shade of summery months, the colour and 

 song of the fields stored, layer upon layer, 

 in the boy's mind, return a hundredfold, 

 and with them a desire, never ceasing, for 

 others to share in this secret of happiness 

 the thoughts given by nature. 



In the evening the village girls came 

 into the field to turn the hay when the 

 grass was fully dried by the sun, and 

 nothing remained of luscious clover or disk 

 of corn feverfew. The young larks or 

 corncrakes, caught perchance by the 

 rasping sweep of scythe, had been dead 



