WILD FLOWERS. 45 



overhung and cast their shadows on the dust boughs 

 of ash-green, shadows that lay still, listening to the 

 nightingale. A place of enchantment in the mornings, 

 where was felt the power of some suhtle influence 

 working behind bough and grass and bird-song. 

 The orange-golden dandelion in the sward was deeply 

 laden with colour brought to it anew again and again 

 by the ships of the flowers, the humble-bees to their 

 quays they come, unlading priceless essences of sweet 

 odours brought from the East over the green seas of 

 wheat, unlading priceless colours on the broad dande- 

 lion disks, bartering these things for honey and pollen. 

 Slowly tacking aslant, the pollen ship hums in the 

 south wind. The little brown wren finds her way 

 through the great thicket of hawthorn. How does 

 she know her path, hidden by a thousand thousand 

 leaves ? Tangled and crushed together by their own 

 growth, a crown of thorns hangs over the thrush's 

 nest ; thorns for the mother, hope for the young. Is 

 there a crowns of thorns over your heart ? A spike 

 has gone deep enough into mine. The stile looks 

 farther away because boughs have pushed forward 

 and made it smaller. The willow scarce holds the sap 

 that tightens the bark and would burst it if it did not 

 enlarge to the pressure. 



Two things can go through the solid oak; the 

 lightning of the clouds that rends the iron timber, the 

 lightning of the spring the electricity of the sun- 

 beams forcing him to stretch forth and lengthen his 

 arms with joy. Bathed in buttercups to the dewlap, 

 the roan cows standing in the golden lake watched 

 the hours with calm frontlet; watched the light 



