OUTDOORS 



soon will lighten with countless hosts of shim- 

 mering leaves. The rushes and canes, the 

 wild-rice and tawny marsh-grass, brood over a 

 waste of dreaming pools and lonely stretches. 



Musk-rat houses dot the shallower por- 

 tions of the marsh, dusky heaps of rushes, 

 piled high by the industry of these cunning 

 water-rats. In many places the water is am- 

 ber-hued, darkened by slivers of decaying 

 reeds and shadowed by the overhanging 

 cover. In some niches it holds the sunlight 

 as a goblet holds wine, with sparkles at the 

 rim, and beaded bubbles welling up to break 

 upon the surface. All this marks the silences 

 of the marsh, the ineffable sadness tinged with 

 a yearning joy as a nun's face might light 

 with a smile at sight of a sleeping child. 



The weather-beaten lines of an old skiff, 

 deserted and rotting, lie in one of the coves, 

 and beside it a school of tadpoles wriggle in 

 inky density. On the boat's bow a solitary 

 mud-turtle dozes in the sun, his black and 

 yellow markings proclaiming his ancient and 

 honorable race. Myriads of glistening wa- 

 ter-bugs dart back and forth over the water, 

 weaving a maze of invisible lines across its 



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