5o 



My Pond. 



basin, self-formed, with a lulling slumbrous sound ; 

 and then, after short pause and eddy, works its way, 

 glittering in the sunshine, through grass and rushes 

 and waving watercresses of giant size, over the 

 centre of what was once the bottom of a second and 

 lower pond, now dried up and reclaimed for pasturage. 

 Very fond the cows are, if they can find the chance, of 

 sheltering here, knee-deep in water, in the hot days of 



•n>r 



summer under the shade of the old elder tree, which 

 had once looked on its image in the sheet of glassy 

 water below it. 



Round both sides of my pond run trees and shrubs 

 of many kinds, most of them old, and probably self- 

 sown : grey-green willows, spreading branches over 

 the water and lightly dipping in, hollies, blackthorns, 

 beeches, ashes, and alders, more retiring, and one or 



