A JUNE IDYL 131 
Even a lord would not act so. Therefore is this 
June day set down as the effort of Providence 
to fit the happy heart of a happy bride. 
“Love maketh life and life’s great work com- 
plete.” On such a day, with Love’s carillons 
swinging in the steeple of the sky, I, the parson, 
journeyed to the wedding where I was to be 
participant in the eternal gladness of the world. 
The road wound across a prairie mainly level, 
with hills rising a good way off and with slight 
depressions not ravinelike but rather as a settling 
of the ground into a saucer, so the things need- 
ing drink might find a place prepared for the 
slaking their thirst. One such our road came 
past leisurely as not eager to be past it. A swale 
with lush grasses thick-leaved, and hummocked 
where the grazing cattle had waded, sybarites 
of the pastures, with here and there between 
hummocks, a glint of water with its sheen, a 
pool of reflection where a leaning flower might 
see its face; and in the midst of this lush meadow 
a lakelet. Call it a pond and have done, though 
lakelet appeals to me as more poetical. How- 
ever, since Thoreau wrote “Walden’’ and named 
it Walden Pond, I will not mince words but con- 
clude that any water called by any name is fit 
for prose poetry. What else could we think 
after having lingered over “Walden”? Name 
it lakelet or pond, still the stars are on its night- 
time surface and on it drips the morning dew 
from the leaning marsh grasses and here the sun- 
