so as not to be so anxious and careworn, but to come out with us, or sit
by us, and listen to the blackbirds, and hear the wind rustle us, and be
happy. Oh, I wish I could make them happy, and do away with all their
care and anxiety, and give you all heaps and heaps of flowers! Don't go
away, darling, do you lie still, and I will talk and sing to you, and you
can pick some more flowers when you get up. There is a beautiful shadow
there, and I heard the streamlet say that he would sing a little to you;
he is not very big, he cannot sing very loud. By-and-by, I know, the sun
will make us as dry as dry, and darker, and then the reapers will come
while the spiders are spinning their silk again--this time it will come
floating in the blue air, for the air seems blue if you look up.

"It is a great joy to your people, dear, when the reaping time arrives:
the harvest is a great joy to you when the thistledown comes rolling
along in the wind. So that I shall be happy even when the reapers cut me
down, because I know it is for you, and your people, my love. The strong
men will come to us gladly, and the women, and the little children will
sit in the shade and gather great white trumpets of convolvulus, and come
to tell their mothers how they saw the young partridges in the next
field. But there is one thing we do not like, and that is, all the labour
and the misery. Why cannot your people have us without so much labour,
and why are so many of you unhappy? Why cannot they be all happy with us
as you are, dear? For hundreds and hundreds of years now the wheat every
year has been sorrowful for your people, and I think we get more
sorrowful every year about it, because as I was telling you just now the
flowers go, and the swallows go, the old, old oaks go, and that oak will
go, under the shade of which you are lying, Guido; and if your people do
not gather the flowers now, and watch the swallows, and listen to the
blackbirds whistling, as you are listening now while I talk, then Guido,
my love, they will never pick any flowers, nor hear any birds' songs.