166 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
in his throat and to me all the Sunday was sung 
across by his song. I had gone to my preaching 
in full content through the day, long in the music 
of that voice. 
So was I considering when, to my surprise, I 
heard a killdeer and then saw him staggering 
about the sky as on broken wings. His was a 
drunken flight, drunk likely by an inebriation 
of the June day. I could certify it was enough 
to make bird or man drunk with delight, had 
they hearts to feel the land and the sky and the 
wonder of God. No marshes were hereabouts 
and what this killdeer was doing here I could 
not guess, though it was enough that he was 
here. Inquisitiveness is no wisdom when loveli- 
ness is near. Let loveliness suffice without the 
poor pin-prick of curiosity. I like to be incurious 
—just to bask in the presence of the thing-to-be- 
desired and to-be-admired and to-be-rejoiced-in. 
That is how to deal with a thing of beauty which 
is a joy forever, as friend Keats has immortally 
phrased it. I have on my little patch of ground 
on which I pay taxes a wild rose whose tint is 
the color of pure flame. It is as if a rose leaf 
sprang into exultant fire—a puff of prairie fire and 
then out forever. Why shall I in a fit of curiosity 
address me to inquire the how of the flame instead 
of giving myself to the rapture of this astonishing 
blossom? Why be part scientist with why and how 
instead of all poet with rejoicing song and ebullient 
delight over the thing of loveliness? 
