To Mountain Tarn 



The brightness, the exhilaration, the vivacity are 

 theirs. The holiday humour they excite ; the 

 laughter of light hearts and sunny moods answer 

 to the ripple on their strands. Remove the lakes 

 and the light would go out. 



Men fish the lakes at least, strangers do : they 

 who come from graver and uglier scenes for a 

 few weeks' refreshing, and space, and beauty. 

 The elbow-room is so great, the ripple so far- 

 spreading, the joy so effortless. And women fish, 

 their laughter rippling pleasantly and sunnily over 

 the rippling of water, away to the magic strand. 

 It is no longer a contemplative person's pursuit 

 that is horrid. With half a dozen in a boat it may 

 be mixed up with so much that is companionable. 



Salmon splash in from between the pent river- 

 banks, and joyously spread out in the ample 

 space, sailing for miles round the winding shores, 

 or across the deep, from shore to shore. In so 

 great a hurry have they been that they still wear 

 the silver sheen of the sea. Nor are the salmon of 

 the lake altogether like those of the lakeless stream, 

 nor the salmon of one lake like those of another. 



For the rest, anything may rise to a lure ; from 

 a salmo ferox big as a salmon ; only not a mi- 

 grant, but a dweller from year's end to year's end 

 to a burn trout which has wandered in from 

 the stream for a change, and may be already 

 rounding and flushing pink from the moulding 

 and staining. 



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