WILD FLOWERS. 47 



down the same place ? " I could not answer ; till 

 then it had not occurred to me that I did always 

 go one way ; as for the reason of it I could not tell ; 

 I continued in my old mind while the summers went 

 away. Not till years afterwards was I able to see 

 why I went the same round and did not care for 

 change. I do not want change: I want the same 

 old and loved things, the same wild-flowers, the 

 same trees and soft ash-green ; the turtle-doves, the 

 blackbirds, the coloured yellowhammer sing, sing, 

 singing so long as there is light to cast a shadow 

 on the dial, for such is the measure of his song, 

 and I want them in the same place. Let me find 

 them morning after morning, the starry- white petals 

 radiating, striving upwards to their ideal. Let me 

 see the idle shadows resting on the white dust ; let 

 me hear the humble-bees, and stay to look down 

 on the rich dandelion disk. Let me see the very 

 thistles opening their great crowns — I should miss 

 the thistles ; the reed-grasses hiding the moorhen ; 

 the bryony bine, at first crudely ambitious and lifted 

 by force of youthful sap straight above the hedgerow 

 to sink of its own weight presently and progress with 

 crafty tendrils ; swifts shot through the air with 

 outstretched wings like crescent-headed shaftless 

 arrows darted from the clouds; the chaffinch with 

 a feather in her bill ; all the living staircase of the 

 spring, step by step, upwards to the great gallery 

 of the summer — let me watch the same succession 

 year by year. 



"Why, I knew the very dates of them all — the red- 

 dening elm, the arum, the hawthorn leaf, the 



