Tlie Rambles of an Idler 



cause ignored, and upon the former has been 

 founded the "saying" which had its value in 

 the eyes of our ancestors. 



It is strange that, days like these, prosy 

 thoughts should intrude upon us. Such crys- 

 talline outlook should give rise to crystalline 

 thought. Should! but poets are not common- 

 place creatures, present on all occasions. The 

 glowing spirit of a cloudless day, the wheat 

 sifted from the tares, the gold from the dross, 

 the soul from the body — not all this can help 

 the plain man who yearns for that beyond his 

 reach and so is cursed, not blessed. Let these 

 snow-buntings play the poet's part. 



Theirs is no machine-like method of entering 

 upon any scene before them. The snow, the 

 ice, the crackling twigs as they rattled in the 

 breeze, were really nothing to stare at, as I was 

 staring. These birds were one with every sight 

 and sound, living fruit of the perfected win- 

 ter. Their white feathers glistened as veri- 

 table flakes falling among the trees. They twit- 

 tered, too, in tune with the rattling of the brittle 

 ice: one with Nature, as birds ever are, and in 

 nothing alien, as man in all things is. As well 

 separate the bits of a mosaic as take these bunt- 



46 



