MY MOUNTAIN GARDEN 



AT the base of Breeda is a shimmering lakelet, 

 nestling at the foot of the great green hills. And 

 around the mere is my mountain garden. To the 

 hundred wild denizens the tarn must prove a veritable 

 summer paradise; and those hills beyond are surely 

 the Delectable Mountains. The marsh-plants and 

 bog-birds have chosen well their haunt, and even 

 now revel in the wealth of summer. The tarn is 

 done in a setting of pale green reeds, these again by 

 waving rushes. The cool leaves of the water-lilies 

 float on every tiny wavelet. Myriads of delicate 

 bank-swallows cling to the giant rushes, whose 

 slender stems bow beneath their weight; then one 

 just touches the water and leaves a sweet commotion 

 in ever-widening circles long after it has flown. 



In those dark green depths a shoal of silvery 

 roach is falling and rising in the warm sunlight, and 

 here a pike rushes off through the reeds. The water- 

 hen leads out her brood among the lilies, and black 

 coots call from the lush summer grass. A pair of 

 swans, whose whole existence seems spent above 

 their shadow, have built a rude structure of a nest, 



and soon the brown cygnets will take possession of 



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