Wild Flowers 



it faded like the shadows as the summer sun declines. 

 Have you watched them in the fields among the 

 flowers? the deep strong mark of the noonday 

 shadow of a tree such as the pen makes drawn heavily 

 on the paper; gradually it loses its darkness and 

 becomes paler and thinner at the edge as it lengthens 

 and spreads, till shadow and grass mingle together. 

 Image after image faded from the plates, no more to 

 be fixed than the reflection in water of the trees by 

 the shore. Memory, like the sun, paints to me bright 

 pictures of the golden summer time of lotus; I can 

 see them, but how shall I fix them for you? By 

 no process can that be accomplished. It is like a 

 story that cannot be told because he who knows it 

 is tongue-tied and dumb. Motions of hands, wavings 

 and gestures, rudely convey the framework, but the 

 finish is not there. 



To-day, and day after day, fresh pictures are 

 coloured instantaneously in the retina as bright and 

 perfect in detail and hue. This very power is often, 

 I think, the cause of pain to me. To see so clearly 

 is to value so highly and to feel too deeply. The 

 smallest of the pencilled branches of the bare ash- 

 tree drawn distinctly against the winter sky, waving 

 lines one within the other, yet following and partly 

 parallel, reproducing in the curve of the twig the 

 curve of the great trunk; is it not a pleasure to trace 

 each to its ending? The raindrops as they slide from 

 leaf to leaf in June, the balmy shower that reperfumes 

 each wild flower and green thing, drops lit with the 

 sun, and falling to the chorus of the refreshed birds; 

 is not this beautiful to see? On the grasses tall and 

 heavy the purplish blue pollen, a shimmering dust, 

 sown broadcast over the ripening meadow from July's 

 warm hand the bluish pollen, the lilac pollen of the 



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