WILD PASTURES 



It is the awkward age of the demoiselle, 

 and I fancy each is right glad to do up 

 the hair, get into long black skirts with 

 iridescent green bodices, and join the 

 afternoon tea flitters. 



What the magic is in the brook, 

 whereby these strange, awkward, crawl- 

 ing creatures, living beneath the water, 

 some day crawl up the stem of a water 

 weed, burst, stretch their wings and fly 

 away the saintly and demure demoiselles 

 of the pool, I do not know whether it 

 be distilled from the witch-hazel by the 

 summer sun, or whether it slips more 

 mysteriously from beneath the breast- 

 plate of the spore of the polypody 

 growing just above my head in the rock 

 crevice. It must be the same magic 

 whereby the many-legged, crawling hel- 

 gramite worm, after living that sort of 

 life sometimes for several years, one 

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