The lines. There is nothing else. Sometimes the 



Hill-Tarn, ptarmigan will whirr across it, though they do 

 not love crossing water. Sometimes the 

 shadow of an eagle's wing darkens the already 

 obscure depths. But the mountain -sheep 

 never reach this height, and even the red deer 

 do not come here to drink these still, brown 

 waters : ' One sees no antlers where the 

 heather ceases,' as the shepherds say. The 

 clouds rise above the crests of the west and 

 pass beyond the crests of the east : snow, the 

 steel-blue sleet, the grey rains, sweep past 

 overhead. In summer, a vast cumulus will 

 sometimes for hours overlean the barren crater 

 and fill the tarn with a snowy wonderland and 

 soft abysses of rose and violet : sometimes a 

 deep, cloudless azure will transmute it to a 

 still flame of unruffled, shadowless blue. At 

 night, when it is not a pit of darkness to which 

 the upper darkness is twilight, it will hold 

 many stars. For three hours Arcturus will 

 pulsate in it like a white flame. Other planets 

 will rise, and other stars. Their silver feet 

 tread the depths in silence. Sometimes the 

 moon thrusts long yellow lances down into its 

 brooding heart, or will lie on its breast like the 

 curled horn of the honeysuckle, or, in autumn, 

 like a floating shell filled with fires of 

 phosphorescence. Sunset never burns there, 



50 



