I have seen them
run breathlessly up the long slope, and then suddenly turn and rush
pell-mell down again. If the wind had only stopped for a moment its
endless gossip with the leaves, I am sure I should have heard the
gleeful shouts, the sportive cries, of these vagrant flowers whose
spell is rewoven over every generation of children, and whose unstudied
beauty and joy recall, with every summer, some of the clews which most
of us have lost in our journey through life. Even as I write, I see
the white and yellow heads tossing to and fro in a mood of free and
buoyant being, which has for me, face to face with the problems of
living, an unspeakable pathos.
What a depth of tender colour fills the arch of heaven as it bends over
this playground of the blooming and beauty-laden forces of nature! The
great summer clouds, shaping their courses to invisible harbours across
the trackless aerial sea, love to drop anchor here and slowly trail
their mighty shadows, vainly groping for something that shall make them
fast. The winds, that have come roaring through the woodlands, subdue
their harsh voices and linger long in their journey across this sunny
expanse. It is true, they sing no lullabies as in the hollow under the
hill where they themselves often fall asleep, but the music to which
they move has a magical cadence of joy in it, and sets our thought to
the dancing mood of the flowers.
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