SEPTEMBER 215 



flowers of the sky, these reincarnations of 

 maidens 



" Who would be wooed, and not unsought, be won," 



but who, in spite of the wooing, elect the 

 solitary way. Who would care for gentians 

 set in a garden bed, or for harebell nodding in 

 a window box? They belong to the rusty 

 sedges of brimming September uplands, to the 

 silence in which one can hear the leaves breath- 

 ing, softly, as a shower comes down the hills, 

 deeply, as the rain drifts down the valley, and 

 the silver bells of the water-drops come from 

 farther and farther distances. The gossamers 

 are abroad in gentian days, lacing the grasses 

 with cordages of fairy spinning for the dew to 

 thread with pearls, and there are faint, delicious 

 breaths of song from small unknown birds who 

 take the place once filled by the blessed 

 choristers of May. They are too small, too 

 shy and too alert to be readily identified by 

 the aid of the how-to-know books, where, no 

 doubt, the colour of the upper mandible and 

 secondary wing coverts are duly set down for 

 the enlightenment of the student armed with 

 a rifle. How can there be rifles, when rifles 

 mean the taking away of the life of a bird! 



