NATURE NEAR LONDON 



with bounteous flow, the current meets the wind 

 direct, a cloud comes up, the breeze freshens, and 

 the watery green waves are tipped with foam. 



Rolling upon the strand, they leave a line like a 

 tide marked by twigs and fragments of dead wood, 

 leaves, and the hop-like flowers of Chichester elms 

 which have been floated up and left. Over the 

 stormy waters a band of brown bank-martins wheel 

 hastily to and fro, and from the osiers the loud 

 chirp of the sedge-reedling rises above the buffet of 

 the wind against the ear, and the splashing of the 

 waves. 



Once more a change, where the stream darts 

 along swiftly, after having escaped from a weir, 

 and still streaked with foam. The shore rises like 

 a sea beach, and on the pebbles men are patching 

 and pitching old barges which have been hauled 

 up on the bank. A skiff partly drawn up on the 

 beach rocks as the current strives to work it loose, 

 and up the varnish of the side glides a flickering 

 light reflected from the wavelets. A fleet of 

 such skiffs are waiting for hire by the bridge ; the 

 waterman cleaning them with a parti-coloured mop 

 spies me eyeing his vessels, and before I know 

 exactly what is going on, and whether I have yet 

 made up my mind, the sculls are ready, the 

 cushions in ; I take my seat, and am shoved gently 

 forth upon the stream. 



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