A NOISOME WEED. 177 



will come and go, salute you with a graceful 

 darting of their forked tongues and then pass on, 

 perhaps to tell their neighbor what strange 

 sights they have seen. And as the day draws to 

 a close, what myriad songs rise from ever)' blade 

 of grass ! Hosts of unseen musicians pipe to the 

 passing breeze; and crickets everywhere chirp 

 so shrilly that the house about me trembles. 



The day is done; but the night brings no 

 end of novelty. The moping herons are no 

 longer stupid ; the blinking owls are all activity. 

 Afar off the whip-poor-will calls who knows 

 why? and the marsh-owl protests, as well it 

 may, at such unseemly clatter. How quickly 

 into a new world has the familiar meadow 

 grown ! Through the half-naked beam and raft- 

 ers of my leafy tent I watch the night-prowling 

 birds go hurrying by, and follow their shadows 

 as the weird bats flit before me, for the moon 

 has risen, and in its pallid light every familiar 

 tree and shrub and all the night-loving wild-life 

 of the meadows is wrapped in uncanny garbs. 

 It is fitting now that a filmy mist should rise as 

 a curtain and shut out the view. " He is none 

 of us," seems to shout every creature in my ear, 

 and, taking the hint, I pick my way homeward 

 through the dripping grass. 



