MINSTREL WEATHER 



freshness, bringing now and then the trib- 

 ute of a laurel leaf or a petal from some 

 flower that bent too close. This bath is 

 gemmed with glittering quartz and floored 

 with red and white pebbles. Gray mosses 

 broider it where the sun lies, and dark 

 green where the water drips. The nymph 

 has been at some pains to train the five- 

 finger ivy and nightshade heavily all about, 

 and the great brakes carpet the path her 

 gleaming feet must tread at sunrise. 

 Now at noon you may come there, trou- 

 bling no living drapery, and dangle your 

 feet over the moss into the dimpling cool- 

 ness of that mountain pool. A trout 

 might dart in, a red lizard appear upon a 

 ledge, but nothing else. The wild-cherry 

 clusters hang within reach. 



In the corner of a meadow where dis- 

 passionate cows graze and snort scorn- 

 fully at the collie who comes to get them 

 in the late afternoon stands a great red 

 oak that has somehow inspired the grass 

 underneath it to grow to tropic heights. 

 But between two of its wandering ancient 

 roots is short grass, woven with canary- 

 flowered cinquefoil vines, and into this 

 nook you may creep, screened by wind- 



[82] 



