Truth’s a wonder. What difference is it how the best head we have greets his first born these days? What weight has it that the bravest hair of all’s gone waiting on cheap tables or the most garrulous lives lonely by a bad neighbor and has her south windows pestered with caterpillars? The nights are long for lice combing or moon dodging—and the net comes in empty again. Or there’s been no fish in this ford since Christian was a baby. Yet up surges the good zest and the game’s on. Follow at my heels, there’s little to tell you you’ld think a stoopsworth. You’ld pick the same faces in a crowd no matter what I’d say. And you’ld be right too. The path’s not yours till you’ve gone it alone a time. But here’s another handful of west wind. White of the night! White of the night. Turn back till I tell you a puzzle: What is it in the stilled face of an old mender-man and winter not far off and a darky parts his wool, and wenches wear of a Sunday? It’s a sparrow with a crumb in his beak dodging wheels and clouds crossing two ways. * * * * * _Virtue is not to be packed in a bag and carried off to the rag mill. Perversions are righted and the upright are reversed, then the stream takes a bend upon itself and the meaning turns a livid purple and drops down in a whirlpool without so much as fraying a single fibre._ XI. 1 Why pretend to remember the weather two years back? Why not? Listen close then repeat after others what they have just said and win a reputation for vivacity. Oh feed upon petals of aedelweis! one dew drop, if it be from the right flower, is five year’s drink! * * * * * _Having once taken the plunge the situation that preceded it becomes obsolete which a moment before was alive with malignant rigidities._ 2 When beldams dig clams their fat hams (it’s always beldams) balanced near Tellus’ hide, this rhinoceros pelt, these lumped stones—buffoonery of midges on a bull’s thigh—invoke,—what you will: birth’s glut, awe at God’s craft, youth’s poverty, evolution of a child’s caper, man’s poor inconsequence. Eclipse of all things; sun’s self turned hen’s rump. 3 Cross a knife and fork and listen to the church bells! It is the harvest moon’s made wine of our blood. Up over the dark factory into the blue glare start the young poplars. They whisper: It is Sunday! It is Sunday! But the laws of the county have been stripped bare of leaves. Out over the marshes flickers our laughter. A lewd anecdote’s the chase. On through the vapory heather! And there at banter’s edge the city looks at us sidelong with great eyes,—lifts to its lips heavenly milk! Lucina, O Lucina! beneficent cow, how have we offended thee? * * * * *