g6 March — The Common Reed. 



We think that nothing can be more natural than the 

 growth of the cereals, but it is not so : the wild grasses 

 with tiny uneatable seeds, these are natural, and not the 

 nourishing cereals. 



XX. 



The Common Reed — Music of Reeds — Pan and a Reedy Stream — 

 Sadness of the Willow and of Reeds — Tennyson's use of them — 

 Song of the Dying Swan — 'The Morte d' Arthur ' — Association of 

 Reeds with a dreary Scene — Mrs. Browning's Association of Reeds 

 with the Sacrifice of the Poet to his Art — Associations of noble 

 Utility — Various practical uses of Reeds — The Reed's Motto — The 

 lesson of the Reed not very noble — Pascal's comparison of man to 

 a Reed. 



AMONGST the good gifts of Nature which have 

 needed absolutely no amelioration by human 

 care or culture, one of the best and handsomest is the 

 common reed, and March is its harvest-time. There 

 i« hardly any thing in Nature more delicately beautiful 

 than some damp corner where the reeds have grown un- 

 disturbed, and turned finally to that pale reed-yellow, a 

 tint far exceeding in refinement the golden hues of straw. 

 The long lanceolate leaves seem like fairy papyrus, on 

 which some elfin bard might indite his exquisite inven- 

 tions, and the tall stalks rustle together as the cool March 

 wind blows through them, and the sound is very sad and 

 melancholy ; because although the glorious spring is 

 coming, when the earth will be covered with flowers, 



