Bathed in buttercups to the dewlap, the roan cows standing in the golden
lake watched the hours with calm frontlet; watched the light descending,
the meadows filling, with knowledge of long months of succulent clover.
On their broad brows the year falls gently; their great, beautiful eyes,
which need but a tear or a smile to make them human,--without these,
such eyes, so large and full, seem above human life, eyes of the
immortals enduring without passion,--in these eyes, as a mirror, nature
is reflected.

I came every day to walk slowly up and down the plain road, by the starry
flowers under the ash-green boughs; ash is the coolest, softest green.
The bees went drifting over by my head; as they cleared the hedges they
passed by my ears, the wind singing in their shrill wings. White
tent-walls of cloud--a warm white, being full to overflowing of
sunshine--stretched across from ash-top to ash-top, a cloud-canvas roof,
a tent-palace of the delicious air. For of all things there is none so
sweet as sweet air--one great flower it is, drawn round about, over, and
enclosing, like Aphrodite's arms; as if the dome of the sky were a
bell-flower drooping down over us, and the magical essence of it filling
all the room of the earth. Sweetest of all things is wild-flower air.
Full of their ideal the starry flowers strained upwards on the bank,
striving to keep above the rude grasses that pushed by them; genius has
ever had such a struggle. The plain road was made beautiful by the many
thoughts it gave. I came every morning to stay by the starlit bank.

A friend said, "Why do you go the same road every day? Why not have a
change and walk somewhere else sometimes? Why keep on up and down the
same place?" I could not answer; till then it had not occurred to me that
I did always go one way; as for the reason of it I could not tell; I
continued in my old mind while the summers went away. Not till years