VII 



An Outlook on Winter 



IN the bottom of the valley is a brook that 

 saunters between oozing banks. It falls 

 over stones and dips under fences. It marks 

 an open place on the face of the earth, and the 

 trees and soft herbs bend their branches into 

 the sunlight. The hang-bird swings her nest 

 over it. Mossy logs are crumbling into it. 

 There are still pools where the minnows play. 

 The brook runs away and away into the forest. 

 As a boy I explored it but never found its 

 source. It came somewhere from the Beyond 

 and its name was Mystery. 



The mystery of this brook was its changing 

 moods. It had its own way of recording the 

 passing of the weeks and months. I remember 

 never to have seen it twice in the same mood, 

 nor to have got the same lesson from it on two 

 successive days; yet, with all its variety, it 

 always left that same feeling of mystery and 

 that same vague longing to follow to its source 



ii 161 



