WRIT IN WATER 



so does nature, writing from her vast cosmic 

 inkstand of water, enscroll the earth with 

 water-writ songs. Thus the whole globe is 

 set to music the voice of many waters 

 which, if one could hear it in its entire 

 volume, might well be one of the mightiest 

 scores in the music of the spheres. And 

 how soothing it is, in the midst of the roar 

 of a great city, to close the outward ear 

 and with the inward one hear the glad little 

 songs of thousands of brooks, the deep full 

 choruses of great rivers, the solemn chants 

 of waterfalls and cataracts, and the stead- 

 fast music of the sea! 



Working with earth, the great artist may 

 sometimes write passages which seem to be 

 prose, but never when she writes with water. 

 Even in her most utilitarian strophes of 

 rainwater she uses wild rhythms and dra- 

 matic intermezzos of thunder and lightning, 

 sometimes closing her performance with the 

 exquisite envoy of a rainbow. 



Nor does she ignore the artistic possibili- 

 ties of the single drop. By a shrewd control 



of atmospheric conditions she distils in the 



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