PROSPERINE'S MESSAGE 241 

 a rabbit screams in an iron gin ; the bird 

 sings on. 



Gone is the evejar, that weird moth- 

 taker who pairs for life. By the Nile, with 

 the cuckoo, the nightingale, and the swift, 

 he flaps his mottled wings. The jackdaws 

 and the curlews are with me; there is the 

 seal four hundred feet below hunting the 

 conger eel come back to the deep pools. 

 Of his summer diet of dogfish he must have 

 wearied by now. The orange hawkbits 

 are everywhere at my feet common weeds, 

 perhaps, but very dear: each yields a 

 thought of beauty, each is a gold coin of 

 our true heritage of the earth. The metal 

 coin that they stamp with the die is false; 

 I would have all the children of the earth 

 spend the dandelions. Therein lies our 

 hope in the wild flower and the sunlight, 

 in what they symbol let the children 

 spend these. The more they spend, the 

 richer they will be. They will never forget 

 the flowers : and to remember them is to 



