II 



A LITTLE feather droops downward to the 

 ground a swallow's feather fuller of mira- 

 cle than the Pentateuch how shall that 

 feather be placed again in the breast where it 

 grew? Nothing twice. Time changes the places 

 that knew us, and if we go back in after years, still 

 even then it is not the old spot ; the gate swings 

 differently, new thatch has been put on the old 

 gables, the road has been widened, and the sward 

 the driven sheep lingered on is gone. Who dares 

 to think then? For faces fade as flowers, and 

 there is no consolation. So now I am sure I was 

 right in always walking the same way by the starry 

 flowers striving upwards on a slender ancestry of 

 stem ; I would follow the plain old road to-day if I 

 could. Let change be far from me ; that irresisti- 

 ble change must come is bitter indeed. Give me 

 the old road, the same flowers they were only 

 stitchwort the old succession of days and garland, 

 ever weaving into it fresh wild-flowers from far and 

 near. Fetch them from distant mountains, dis- 

 cover them on decaying walls, in unsuspected 

 corners; though never seen before, still they are 

 the same : there has been a place in the heart 

 waiting for them. 



RICHARD JEFFERIES 



From ' ' Wild Flowers " 



