Wild Flowers 



heavy mind. This one yellowhammer still sits on 

 the ash branch in Stewart's Mash over the sward, 

 singing in the sun, his feathers freshly wet with 

 colour, the same sun-song, and will sing to me so 

 long as the heart shall beat. 



The first conscious thought about wild flowers was 

 to find out their names the first conscious pleasure, 

 and then I began to see so many that I had not 

 previously noticed. Once you wish to identify them 

 there is nothing escapes, down to the little white 

 chickweed of the path and the moss of the wall. I 

 put my hand on the bridge across the brook to lean 

 over and look down into the water. Are there any 

 fish ? The bricks of the pier are covered with green, 

 like a wall-painting to the surface of the stream, 

 mosses along the lines of the mortar, and among the 

 moss little plants what are these ? In the dry sun- 

 lit lane I look up to the top of the great wall about 

 some domain, where the green figs look over upright 

 on their stalks ; there are dry plants on the coping 

 what are these? Some growing thus, high in the air, 

 on stone, and in the chinks of the tower, suspended 

 in dry air and sunshine; some low down under the 

 arch of the bridge over the brook, out of sight utterly, 

 unless you stoop by the brink of the water and project 

 yourself forward to examine under. The kingfisher 

 sees them as he shoots through the barrel of the 

 culvert. There the sun direct never shines upon 

 them, but the sunlight thrown up by the ripples runs 

 all day in bright bars along the vault of the arch, 

 playing on them. The stream arranges the sand in 

 the shallow in bars, minute fixed undulations; the 

 stream arranges the sunshine in successive flashes, 

 undulating as if the sun, drowsy in the heat, were 

 idly closing and unclosing his eyelids for sleep. 



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