hurrying and confined tides. So * still waters ' Still 

 covers lakes and mountain-lochs, shallow meres, Waters, 

 lagoons, the reaches of slow rivers, lochans, 

 tarns, the dark brown pools in peat-moors, or 

 the green -blue pools in open woods and 

 shadowy forests, the duckweed-margined ponds 

 at the skirts of villages, the lilied ponds of 

 old manor-garths and of quiet gardens, asleep 

 beneath green canopies or given over to the 

 golden carp and the dragon-fly beneath mossed 

 fountains or beyond time-worn terraces. Often, 

 too, and in February and October above all, 

 the low - lying lands are flooded, and the 

 bewildered little lives of the pastures crowd 

 the hedgerows and copses. Sometimes for 

 days, motionless, these mysterious lake-arrivals 

 abide under the grey sky, sometimes a week or 

 weeks pass before they recede. The crow 

 flying home at dusk sees the pale cloud and the 

 orange afterglow reflected in an inexplicable 

 mirror where of late the grey-green grass and 

 brown furrow stretched for leagues : the 

 white owl, hawking the pastures after dusk, 

 swoops so low on his silent wings that he veers 

 upward from a ghostly flying image under- 

 neath, as a bat at sundown veers from the 

 phantom of its purblind flight. 



Delicate haze, cloud-dappled serenity, and 

 moonlight are the three chief qualities of 

 257 s 



