AN APOSTROPHE. 
149 
Tennyson puts before us in the Morte d' Arthur, where we see Sir 
Bedivere 
" Stepping dowii 
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock," 
and so arriving at 
" The shining level of the lake ;" 
and are made to hear 
"The ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crags." 
It is from Christopher North, however, that we borrow our final 
glimpse of the heron. Apostrophizing him, he exclaims : " It is 
fortunate for thee, folded up there as thou art, as motionless as thy 
sitting-stone, that at this moment we have no firearms ; for we have 
heard of a fish like trout in that very pool, and this, O Heron ! is 
no gun, but a rod. Thou believest thyself to be in utter solitude, — 
no sportsman but thj^self in the chasm, — for the otter, thou knowest, 
loves not such very rocky rivers; and fish with bitten shoulder 
seldom lies here, — that epicure's tasted prey. Yet within two yards 
of thee lies couched thy enemy, who once had a design upon thee, 
even in the very egg. Our mental soliloquy disturbs not thy watchful 
sense, for the air stirs not when the soul thinks, or feels, or fancies 
about man, bird, or beast. We feel, 0 Heron, that there is not only 
humanity, but poetry, in our being. Imagination haunts and pos- 
sesses us in our pastimes, colouring them even with serious, solemn, 
and sacred light; and thou assuredly hast something priest-like and 
ancient in thy look, and about thy light-blue plume robes, which 
the very elements admire and reverence, — the waters wetting them 
not, nor the winds ruffling; and, moreover, we love thee. Heron, for the 
sake of that old castle beside whose gloom thou utteredst thy first 
feeble cry ! " 
THE GREBE. 
The pools near the sea-coast, the immediate neighbourhood of lakes 
and rivers, and the reedy depths of the marshes, are the favourite 
habitat of the grebe ; a vigorous and handsome-looking bird, closely 
10 B 
