152 INVOCATION 



to sunset, its pebbly shallow is thronged 

 with finches, pippits, doves, warblers, and 

 cuckoos. How the goldfinches love the 

 water ! With sweet, reedy twitterings a 

 flock will come from orchard haunts and 

 bathe in the running water, the yellow- 

 barred wings aflutter and crimson faces 

 dipped again and again. Copper finches 

 follow, with perhaps those minute travellers 

 the Golden Crowned Knights, as the country 

 folk so beautifully term the smallest British 

 bird. 



Other creatures know of this avian 

 meeting-place. The weasel comes, and a 

 great sombre pair of ravens; and the 

 sparrowhawk dashes sometimes in the midst, 

 seizing one of the bathers. To me this is 

 a place of pilgrimage, where all things 

 come down to the life-giving waters. Even 

 here, however, there is heard in the heated 

 air those sad cries from the hills. 



A village girl showed me some verses 

 she had written on the drought. She was 



