There is a little kind of star that drowns itself by hundreds in the river Thames—­the many-rayed silver-white seed that makes journeys on all the winds up and down England and across it in the end of summer.  It is a most expert traveller, turning a little wheel a-tiptoe wherever the wind lets it rest, and speeding on those pretty points when it is not flying.  The streets of London are among its many highways, for it is fragile enough to go far in all sorts of weather.  But it gets disabled if a rough gust tumbles it on the water so that its finely-feathered feet are wet.  On gentle breezes it is able to cross dry-shod, walking the waters.

All unlike is this pilgrim star to the tethered constellations.  It is far adrift.  It goes singly to all the winds.  It offers thistle plants (or whatever is the flower that makes such delicate ashes) to the tops of many thousand hills.  Doubtless the farmer would rather have to meet it in battalions than in these invincible units astray.  But if the farmer owes it a lawful grudge, there is many a rigid riverside garden wherein it would be a great pleasure to sow the thistles of the nearest pasture.

RUSHES AND REEDS

Taller than the grass and lower than the trees, there is another growth that feels the implicit spring.  It had been more abandoned to winter than even the short grass shuddering under a wave of east wind, more than the dumb trees.  For the multitudes of sedges, rushes, canes, and reeds were the appropriate lyre of the cold.  On them the nimble winds played their dry music.  They were part of the winter.  It looked through them and spoke through them.  They were spears and javelins in array to the sound of the drums of the north.

The winter takes fuller possession of these things than of those that stand solid.  The sedges whistle his tune.  They let the colour of his light look through—­low-flying arrows and bright bayonets of winter day.

The multitudes of all reeds and rushes grow out of bounds.  They belong to the margins of lands, the space between the farms and the river, beyond the pastures, and where the marsh in flower becomes perilous footing for the cattle.  They are the fringe of the low lands, the sign of streams.  They grow tall between you and the near horizon of flat lands.  They etch their sharp lines upon the sky; and near them grow flowers of stature, including the lofty yellow lily.

Our green country is the better for the grey, soft, cloudy darkness of the sedge, and our full landscape is the better for the distinction of its points, its needles, and its resolute right lines.