 |
| Lily Pond at Monk's House |
The
scullery maid, before the plates came out, was cooling her cheeks by the lily
pond.
There had
always been lilies there, self-sown from wind-dropped seed, floating red and
white on the green plates of their leaves. Water, for hundreds of years, had
silted down into the hollow, and lay there four or five feet deep over a black
cushion of mud. Under the thick plate of green water, glazed in their
self-centred world, fish swam--gold, splashed with white, streaked with black or
silver. Silently they manoeuvred in
their water world, poised in the blue patch made by the sky, or shot silently
to the edge where the grass, trembling, made a fringe of nodding shadow. On the water-pavement spiders printed their
delicate feet. A grain fell and spiralled
down; a petal fell, filled and sank. At
that the fleet of
boat-shaped bodies paused; poised; equipped; mailed; then with a waver of
undulation off they flashed.
Between the Acts (29)
No comments:
Post a Comment