NATURE NEAR LONDON ss 



Glossy thistledown, heedless whither it goes, 

 comes in at the open window. Between thickets 

 of broom there is a glimpse down into a meadow 

 shadowed by the trees of a wood. It is bordered 

 with the cool green of brake fern, from which a 

 rabbit has come forth to feed, and a pheasant strolls 

 along with a mind, perhaps, to the barley yonder. 

 Or a fox-glove lifts its purple spire ; or woodbine 

 crowns the bushes. The sickle has gone over, 

 and the poppies which grew so thick a while ago 

 in the corn no longer glow like a scarlet cloak 

 thrown on the ground. But red spots in waste 

 places and by the ways are where they have escaped 

 the steel. 



A wood-pigeon keeps pace with the train his 

 vigorous pinions can race against an engine, but 

 cannot elude the hawk. He stops presently among 

 the trees. How pleasant it is from the height of 

 the embankment to look down upon the tops of the 

 oaks ! The stubbles stretch away, crossed with 

 bands of green roots where the partridges are hid- 

 ing. Among flags and weeds the moorhens feed 

 fearlessly as we roll over the stream : then comes 

 a cutting, and more heath and hawkweed, harebell, 

 and bramble bushes red with unripe berries. 



Flowers grow high up the sides of the quarries ; 

 flowers cling to the dry, crumbling chalk of the 

 cliftlike cutting; flowers bloom on the verge above, 

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