WOODLAND WATERS
Through leaves of the nodding trees
Where blossoms sway in the breeze,
Pink bag-pipes make for the bees,
Whose slogan is droning and drawling,
Where columbine scatters its bells
And the wild bleeding-heart its shells
O'er mosses and rocks of the dells
The brook of the forest is calling.
You can hear it under the hill
When the wind in the wood is still,
And, strokes of a fairy drill,
Sounds the bill of the yellow-hammer.
By the Solomon's seal it slips
Cohosh and the grass that drips
Like the sound of an Undine's lips
Is the sound of its falls that stammer.
Madison Cawein.
THE GRUBBIEST GRUB
J. Bevan
"There's no use trying," said the newest newt; "you'll never be anything but grubby."
The newest newt lived at the bottom of the garden pond. He was a very elegant newt. The orange spots on his waistcoat were the brightest to be seen in all the garden.
The grubbiest grub was not elegant. He was unquestionably the very grubbiest thing in the garden pond. However, he had ambitions.
"But there's no use trying," said the newest newt again. "I myself saw you fall from a willow leaf not so long since, and had ideas about you. I thought, perhaps, you might be some new kind of egg and hatch into a royal turtle. But I watched you, and you didn't hatch—you grew just like a tadpole. Only you didn't grow even into a frog."
The grubbiest grub said nothing. His heart grew a little bitter as he thought, "Not even into a frog."
"But cheer up," said the newest newt, "there's mud enough at the bottom of the garden spot for all of us. And it's not a bad place—aristocratic turtles in the neighbourhood, and I live here."
He was off with an extra swirl of his extra shiny tail. He was due at the turtles' ball at sunset. He was always being invited somewhere because of the orange on his waistcoat.
The grubbiest grub was never invited anywhere, and he didn't look like anything that anybody had ever seen, and didn't seem related to anybody. And his heart rebelled.
"Up above the pond there is light," he said. "I know that, and there is some strange thing—tall, and coloured like—like——" He couldn't think what. He had only pond grass and pond creatures to compare it to. "Like——" A little fish swam slowly past him, and, as it turned, the long light, sifting through the water from the sunset, caught colours on its body. "Like that!" said the grubbiest grub.
The fish was swaying slowly. Then it saw the grubbiest grub. "Good evening," said the sparkling fish; "and isn't there a party?"
"To be sure," answered the grubbiest grub, "but you see I'm not invited."
The sparkling fish looked again. "Why," she said, "I thought you belonged to that set of newts and turtles, and the better class of pond frogs. Anyway, why aren't you invited?"
"I'm far too grubby," said the grubbiest grub; "didn't you know?"
The little silver fish swam slowly around the grub.
"I think you belong above," she said at last; "don't you ever want to go up there?"
"I have dreamed of a thing gleaming like—like——"
"Rainbows," said the shining fish.
"Rainbows," repeated the grubbiest grub, "and I have wanted so to find one. But I never could tell anyone. The newt would have died laughing."
"So you're afraid of being laughed at!" said the fish. "I think you do belong to the turtle set." And she swam away.
Suddenly something seemed to sting and burn into the heart of the grubby grub. The look the silver fish had given him was worse than the laughter of any number of newts. "I will go and find the thing I dreamed," he said.
The grubbiest grub started slowly up a mass of tangled roots and thence on to a long, thin stem. The wave that rippled round the stem saw the grub coming. "You don't belong here," he said.
"Please," entreated the grub, and his poor grubby face looked so sad that the wave paused a moment before he brushed him off.
"Well—what do you want here?" asked the wave. "We can't have grubs eating out our lily hearts, you know."
The grub took a deep breath, and clung on tightly to the lily stem. He was terribly afraid of being laughed at, but he thought of the silver fish and the pain that was worse than any laughter. "I don't want to eat your lily's heart," he said; "I'm only looking for a thing I—dreamed."
Strange, the wave didn't laugh. He only looked more closely at the grubby grub. "Oh, you're that kind," he said. "Sure enough. Well, go along. Take the first turning by the moss roots, and good luck to you."
The grubbiest grub went on. He found moving upward easier as he grew more used to it. At the place where the moss roots clung most closely to the lily stem, he turned off, then along the moss roots to the edge of the pond, and on up to a broad shaft of green pointing still higher.
The grubbiest grub paused. He was very, very tired, and everything was new and strange to him. He had never breathed the air before, nor seen the stars.
About him were many voices, and there were points of light and trails, and flashes of gold, such as the silver fish had scattered in the water. There was darkness, too, reaching beneath to clutch him.
The grubbiest grub clung tightly to the shaft of green. "What am I doing here? What am I doing here?" he asked himself, and his back ached and his sides ached, and his heart was numb with aching.
"Why, you are waiting for the morning," said a little voice beside him. "Don't be frightened. I've seen your kind before. You came up from the mud, and if you wait till daylight you'll have wings and fly away. The children in the big house will clap their hands and say, "Look, look, another dragon-fly! Your wings are like rainbows."
"You can't be laughing at me," said the grubbiest grub; "your voice is kind."
"Why should I laugh?" said the little voice. "I am one of the grass-blade spirits, and I love all things with wings."
"But I have no wings," said the grubby grub, "and it seems darker."
"No, no," said the grass-blade spirit. "It's only the moon gone for a moment. But, oh!" she cried, as the moon flickered through on the broad green shaft again, "your shell has broken open."
And sure enough, there sat a pale wisp of a dragon-fly in the moonlight. "But I have no wings," he cried in disappointment. "I cannot fly."
"Only wait," said the grass-blade spirit, and he waited in eager, trembling excitement.
He waited while the stars turned round the heavens and the moon sank.
Then his heart lifted up, and he felt his wings, and he flew.
He flew, trembling, quivering, white but touched with iridescent colour, on, on above the pointed shaft, on still in the dawn.
The grass-blade spirit watched. "Yes! yes!" he cried from below; "splendid—O beautiful spirit—but higher!"
Higher he went, and then he sank exhausted.
"You have found your dream," cried the grass-blade spirit, as the dragon-fly felt the warmth about him.
He opened his eyes. He saw blue and gold and yellow of sunlight flashing in the dawn. About him was fragrance and rest and peace.
"I love you," said the iris flower, where he had fallen; "and I have waited for you—it is day."
So the poor grub, with the funny, blinking eyes and the puffy face had fallen on the petals of a great sweet iris flower. Of course, as you know, every flower is the house of a fairy. And this house was a palace of blue flowers veined in gold, and blue fringes and tassels in the inmost inner room, where the wonderful fairy lived who was the flower princess.
The iris-flower princess rose from her couch of lavender and gold. It was then that she said, "I have waited for you—it is day."
And it was day, sparkling and gleaming on all the grass-blades.
The grubbiest grub—who was a dragon-fly prince now, in green velvet and a silken cloak, shimmering like wings behind him—and the flower princess stood on the flower palace steps, and looked out across the grass-blades.
All the little grass-blade spirits cried, "All hail, Prince Dragon-Fly!" and the flower princess—who would be queen now of all the winged folk as well—called to the grass-blade spirit who had urged Prince Dragon-Fly to find her. And as the little grass-blade fairy knelt there at her feet, she proclaimed him "Knight of the Grass-Blades, Keeper of the Dewdrops, and Lord High Admiral of the Garden Pond."
The folk at the bottom of the garden pond, however, went on just the same in spite of the New Dewdrop—High Lord, Grass-Blade Admiral. In fact, they didn't even know that there was a new admiral, and they never dreamed of the great coronation ceremony that was to make the poor little despised grubby thing the king of the winged creatures. They just thought about themselves as usual, and the success of the last ball, and the aristocratic turtles, and the extra shiny mud floor where the newest newt with the orange spots on his waistcoat had danced so beautifully with Sir Fat-Frog's fattest daughter.