physicist, he might get an idea by carefully ex- 

 amining the way the body of till-top is balanced 

 on its needle legs. If till-tops have not been 

 tilting forever, and shall not go on tilting for- 

 ever, it is because something is wrong with the 

 mechanism of the world outside their little 

 spotted bodies. Surely the easiest, least willed 

 motion in all the universe is this sandpiper's 

 teeter, teeter, teeter, as it hurries peering and 

 prying along the shore. 



Killdeers and sandpipers are noisy birds ; and 

 one would know, after half a day upon the 

 marsh, even if he had never seen these birds 

 before, that they could not have been bred here. 

 For however 



candid and simple and nothing- withholding and 

 free 



the marsh may seem to one coming suddenly 

 from the wooded uplands, it will not let one 

 enter far without the consciousness that silence 

 and secrecy lie deeper here than in the depths 

 of the forest glooms. The true birds of the 

 marsh, those that feed and nest in the grass, 

 have the spirit of the great marsh-mother. 

 [60] 



