To Mountain Tarn 



same plunge would put out the glitter and the 

 life. 



And no one would see. Save the golden eagle 

 which circles there almost any day as his eye 

 swept across, searching the heather on either side 

 for the blue mountain hare. And the peregrine, 

 in hot chase against the slope ; after the grouse, 

 which in its haste and confusion inadvertently 

 struck the water, or with the devil behind, pre- 

 ferred the deep sea. Hard by, the eagle builds. 

 Few seasons is the aerie of the falcon empty. 

 And he who would rob the nest of either deserves 

 all he gets. 



To the tarn, the burn leads ; of the tarn, it is 

 the outlet or tail. The story reads quite simply. 

 The sliding debris of the hills will fill up the lake 

 basin, each avalanche whose weird light goes out 

 in the plunge adding its little. The stream will 

 fret the channel ever deeper. So a day will 

 come distant it may be, but inevitable when 

 the moist lips will be dry, and only the stiff mould 

 in which the restless pliant form frets its little 

 hour will be left. This, too, will be a dead tarn. 



Trout are many but shy. The visitors from 

 the Esk, which freshen the life, soon acquire the 

 habits of those to the manner born. The water 

 is clear ; even among mountain tarns, so different 

 from the oft-muddied sheets of the plain. The 

 conditions are rarer, the changes subtler than 

 those of the glen streams. At midday, when the 



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