A Few Paces Farther Up There Is A Red
Rapid - Reddened Stones, And Reddened Growths Beneath The Water, A Light
That Lets The Red Hues Overcome The Others - A Wild Rush Of Crowded Waters
Rotating As They Go, Shrill Voices Calling.
This next bend upwards
dazzles the eyes, for every inclined surface and striving parallel, every
swirl, and bubble, and eddy, and rush around a rock chances to reflect
the sunlight.
Not one long pathway of quiet sheen, such as stretches
across a rippled lake, each wavelet throwing back its ray in just
proportion, but a hundred separate mirrors vibrating, each inclined at a
different angle, each casting a tremulous flash into the face. The
eyelids involuntarily droop to shield the gaze from a hundred arrows;
they are too strong - nothing can be distinguished but a woven surface of
brilliance, a mesh of light, under which the water runs, itself
invisible. I will go back to the deep green pool, and walking now with
the sun behind, how the river has changed!
Soft, cool shadows reach over it, which I did not see before; green
surfaces are calm under trees; the rocks are less hard; the stream runs
more gently, and the oaks come down nearer; the delicious sound of the
rushing water almost quenches my thirst. My eyes have less work to do to
meet the changing features of the current which now seems smooth as my
glance accompanies its movement. The sky, which was not noticed before,
now appears reaching in rich azure across the deep hollow, from the oaks
on one side to the oaks on the other.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 317 of 394
Words from 85048 to 85318
of 105669
