GATES OF THE MORNING 65 



dawn light, pond-weeds trailed their new-born leaves 

 beneath, and the sun flooded the heart of that singing 

 stream with clear colour — amber and agate and cherry- 

 red — where it struck upon submerged banks of peat. 

 Along the margins of the stream, ivy-leaved crowfoot 

 turned little white faces to the morning ; and the 

 flowers were thrones for lustrous, ephemeral things, 

 with wings of gauze and golden eyes, that also blessed 

 the only sun they would know. From fleeting blossom 

 and fragile midge my sight passed directly along half 

 a league of lonely ridges to Believer's turrets and 

 granite fortresses where that great tor dominated the 

 land. He, indeed, seemed like to witness a million 

 more such sunrises — to shelter the mist and the grey 

 lichens till the end of the world ; but my part was 

 with the insect and the flower. I looked up at the 

 giant's head, dark against the morning, for once rested 

 content with my small parcel of time, nor grudged 

 him one of all his centuries. 



The water sang very placidly, and purred to the 

 green things anchored in it, and the light lingered 

 much here, streaked each rush with brightness, trans- 

 formed each blossom into a fairy cup, into a jewel 

 of gold, or silver, or pure turquoise, where speedwells 

 and forget-me-nots shone like the sky. 



The old bridge passed through a dawn phase also, 

 and existed through that wonderful hour as though 

 every fragment understood. His clefts and crannies 

 sparkled out with stonecrops and the young fronds 

 of the spleenwort. These leapt in little aigrettes of 



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