WILD FLOWEBS. 85 



lost their newness, and even now each time I gather 

 a wild flower it feels a new thing. The greenfinches 

 came to the fallen swathe so near to us they seemed 

 to have no fear ; but I remember the yellowhammers 

 most, whose colour, like that of the wild flowers and 

 the sky, has never faded from my memory. The 

 greenfinches sank into the fallen swathe, the loose 

 grass gave under their weight and let them bathe in 

 flowers. 



One yellowhammer sat on a branch of ash the live- 

 long morning, still singing in the sun; his bright 

 head, his clean bright yellow, gaudy as Spain, was 

 drawn like a brush charged heavily with colour 

 across the retina, painting it deeply, for there on 

 the eye's memory it endures, though that was boy- 

 hood and this is manhood, still unchanged. The 

 field — Stewart's Mash — the very tree, young ash 

 timber, the branch projecting over the sward, I 

 could make a map of them. Sometimes I think 

 sun-painted colours are brighter to me than to 

 many, and more strongly affect the nerves of the 

 eye. Straw going by the road on a dusky winter's 

 day seems so pleasantly golden, the sheaves lying 

 aslant at the top, and these bundles of yellow tubes 

 thrown up against the dark ivy on the opposite wall. 

 Tiles, red burned, or orange. coated, the sea sometimes 

 cleanly definite, the shadows of trees in a thin wood 

 where there is room for shadows to form and fall; 

 some such shadows are sharper than light, and have 

 a faint blue tint. Not only in summer but in cold 

 winter, and not only romantic things but plain matter- 

 of-fact things, as a waggon freshly painted red beside 



