or among the reeds.
Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing bramble,
and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded by a broad
straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin in the sun,
and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising eyes. Across her
shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose curls, brown in shadow, almost
golden where the ray touched them. She was simply dressed, befitting
decency and the season. On a closer inspection you might see that her
lips were stained. This blooming young person was regaling on dewberries.
They grew between the bank and the water. Apparently she found the fruit
abundant, for her hand was making pretty progress to her mouth.
Fastidious youth, which revolts at woman plumping her exquisite
proportions on bread-and-butter, and would (we must suppose) joyfully
have her scraggy to have her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries.
Indeed the act of eating them is dainty and induces musing. The dewberry
is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent sister. You eat: mouth, eye,
and hand are occupied, and the undrugged mind free to roam. And so it was
with the damsel who knelt there. The little skylark went up above her,
all song, to the smooth southern cloud lying along the blue: from a dewy
copse dark over her nodding hat the blackbird fluted, calling to her with
thrice mellow note: the kingfisher flashed emerald out of green osiers: a
bow-winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude a boat slipped toward
her, containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the fruit, and ate,
and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her territories, and as if
she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded by the green
shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weir-fall's thundering
white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she was a bit of
lovely human life in a fair setting; a terrible attraction. The Magnetic
Youth leaned round to note his proximity to the weir-piles, and beheld
the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller grew nature, as at the meeting of
two electric clouds. Her posture was so graceful, that though he was
making straight for the weir, he dared not dip a scull. Just then one
enticing dewberry caught her eyes. He was floating by unheeded, and saw
that her hand stretched low, and could not gather what it sought. A
stroke from his right brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up
dismayed, and her whole sh