Wings, Wings, Wings 61 



common observers, is a whole legal brief, going 

 far to prove the adaptation of means to ends in 

 the scheme of things. Those long legs, clearly 

 intended for wading, would not be of much value 

 if not a step could be taken without a splash; 

 so that has been provided for, and the wide- 

 spreading toes are carefully folded up by the 

 same contraction of the muscles that raise the 

 foot, and are not allowed to expand till the foot 

 is again beneath the surface of the water, and 

 consequently there is no splash. In spite of all 

 this, perhaps the frog is about the only thing 

 that does not regard the Crane as a joke. 



4 'They shall mount up on wings, as Eagles," 

 said the Prophet of God, foretelling the strength 

 to be the inheritance of the Redeemed : and never 

 was grander figure of speech used to portray 

 super-human might. The power of flight reaches 

 its final triumph in the king of the air; other 

 winged things hurl themselves through it, while 

 the Eagle alone, floats across fields of space 

 claiming lazy kinship with the passing cloud. 

 Effortless it climbs invisible spiral stairs that lead 

 upward toward the very temple of the sun and 

 drops back to earth, held in the secure embrace 

 of some dreamy zephyr. It soars and seeks those 

 far altitudes that no eye hath reached and 

 through which dreams wander and lose their way. 

 Along the rocky slopes of old Sugar Loaf, the 



