THE RECLUSE. 



have often been charmed, when standing by the 

 edge of some darkling stream, bordered with lofty 

 trees that so overhang the water as nearly to 

 meet, leaving only a narrow line of sky above the 

 centre of the river, with the sight of the coy sum- 

 mer-duck. When the western sky is burning with 

 golden flame, and its gleam, reflected from the 

 middle of "the dark, the silent stream,'' throws 

 into blacker shadow the placid margins, then, 

 from out of the indistinct obscurity, a whirring of 

 wings is heard, and the little duck shoots plashing 

 along the surface into the centre, leaving a long 

 V-shaped wake behind her, till, rising into the 

 air, she sails away on rapid pinion till the eye 

 loses her in the sunset glow. 



On other occasions we trace the same bird far 

 up in the solitudes of the sky, breaking into view 

 out of the objectless expanse, and presently dis- 

 appearing in the same blank. We wonder whence 

 it came; whither it is going. Bryant's beautiful 

 stanzas, though well known, will bear repetition 

 here :— 



TO A WATER-FOWL. 



Whither, 'midst falling dew, 

 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 

 Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 



Thy solitary way? 



Vainly the fowler's eye 

 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 

 As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 



Thy figure floats along. 



Seek'st thou the plashy brink 

 Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 

 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 



On the chafed ocean side ? 



There is a Power whose care 

 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 

 The desert and illimitable air,— 



Lone wandering, but not lost. 

 191 



