Wild Flowers 



crafty tendrils; swifts shot through the air with 

 outstretched wings like crescent - headed shaftless 

 arrows darted from the clouds; the chaffinch with 

 a feather in her bill; all the living staircase of the 

 spring, step by step, upwards to the great gallery 

 of the summer let me watch the same succession 

 year by year. 



Why, I knew the very dates of them all the red- 

 dening elm, the arum, the hawthorn leaf, the celan- 

 dine, the may; the yellow iris of the waters, the 

 heath of the hillside. The time of the nightingale 

 the place to hear the first note; onwards to the 

 drooping fern and the time of the redwing the place 

 of his first note, so welcome to the sportsman as the 

 acorn ripens and the pheasant, come to the age of 

 manhood, feeds himself; onwards to the shadowless 

 days the long shadowless winter, for in winter it 

 is the shadows we miss as much as the light. They 

 lie over the summer sward, design upon design, dark 

 lace on green and gold; they glorify the sunlight: 

 they repose on the distant hills like gods upon 

 Olympus ; without shadow, what even is the sun ? At 

 the foot of the great cliffs by the sea you may know 

 this, it is dry glare; mighty ocean is dearer as the 

 shadows of the clouds sweep over as they sweep over 

 the green corn. Past the shadowless winter, when 

 it is all shade, and therefore no shadow; onwards 

 to the first coltsfoot and on to the seed-time again; 

 I knew the dates of all of them. I did not want 

 change; I wanted the same flowers to return on the 

 same day, the titlark to rise soaring from the same 

 oak to fetch down love with a song from heaven to 

 his mate on the nest beneath. No change, no new 

 thing ; if I found a fresh wild-flower in a fresh place, 

 still it wove at once into the old garland. In vain, 



49 D 



