XX111 

 OF THIS EVENING 



THIS night a red sedge and I were in the 

 meadow below Crab Hatch from 9.0 to 

 10.0, and later. I saw nothing move, caught 

 nothing, cared nothing. The evening was a 

 benediction, dry, warm, still ; not a hint of mist 

 anywhere, not a flaw on the mirror of the stream. 

 The sky was a field of cloud picked out in smoky 

 violet with fish scales of darkest brown, but there 

 flared above the valley's elbow one broad band 

 of white light. As I crept along the bank it 

 glinted ghostly among the mysterious fields. And 

 always, dying, it moved steadily into the North. 

 Under the banks lurked endless gloom, and at my 

 feet the thinnest rippling shallow, at this unreveal- 

 ing hour, seemed motionless, as if the stillness 

 of the night had gripped the very river. 



The Valley, by day so bright, so filled with 

 colour and life and feature the spread carpet 

 of tinted grasses, the swelling golden green walls 

 of turf, the arched canopy of flecked blue, the 

 sombre beech woods, the grey tremulous willows, 



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