THE BROOK IN APRIL 



J. HE pond is a mile long, but it is 

 shallow, with a level bottom that was 

 once a peat meadow, and the water, hold- 

 ing some of this peat in solution, has a 

 fine amber tinge. It is as if the sphag- 

 nums that wrought for ages in the bog 

 and died to give it its black levels held 

 in reserve vast stores of their own rich 

 wine reds and mingled them with the 

 yellows of hemlock heart-wood and the 

 soft tan of marsh grasses that lie dead, 

 all robed in funereal black at the pond 

 bottom. 



By what mystery of alchemy the water 

 compounds during its winter wait under 

 the thick ice this amethystine glow in its 



89 



