To Mountain Tarn 



alluring. I awoke to its teeming voes and flash- 

 ing sea coasts. 



The stillness had freshened into wind ; the 

 mist came down in slanting rain. A wild morn- 

 ing broke. I looked out on the inland-stretching 

 arms or tentacles of ocean. Twice a day, tides 

 from the Atlantic or North Sea moved on the 

 face of the waters ; it was infinitely fresher than 

 the black lakes life for death. Bare heights of 

 glittering schist or red granite rose clear out of 

 the peat. 



By the side of one of these northern voes I 

 settled down, with rippling canvas for walls and 

 a roof. It was pleasant to rock out at the flow 

 of the tide, and look over the side of the boat. 

 So amazing was the fecundity of the Shetland 

 waters, especially those that branched, as ours 

 did, from the west. Atlantic tides seemed in the 

 throes of a mighty birth. Life teemed, rolled 

 over life, and disappeared in the mass, to rise 

 again wherever there was room. 



And how great the forms were ; what circles 

 the jellyfishes made. Aurelia, with its four pur- 

 ple crescents ; and Cyanea, with long floating 

 streamers. The colours the purples, the blues, 

 the browns in curves, in masses, in lines, against 

 the neutral shades of the umbrella or water, sated, 

 as does the passage of an army. 



The lesser medusae over which these great 

 forms rolled away inland when one could get the 



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