Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/157

Rh with a ragged wing against the high wood side, apparently to scare his prey, and so detect it, shrill, harsh, fitted to excite terror in sparrows, and to issue from his split and curved bill, spit with force from his mouth with an undulatory quaver imparted to it from his wings or motion as he flies. I see his open bill the while against the sky. A hawk's ragged wing will grow whole again, but so will not a poet's.

Here at Well Meadow head I see the fringed purple orchis, unexpectedly beautiful, though a pale lilac purple, a large spike of purple flowers. I find two [of the same species], the grandiflora of Bigelow and fimbriata of Gray. Bigelow thinks it the most beautiful of all the orchises. . . . Why does it grow there only, far in a swamp, remote from public view? It is some what fragrant, reminding me of the lady's slipper. Is it not significant that some rare and delicate and beautiful flowers should be found only in unfrequented wild swamps? . . . Yet I am not sure but this is a fault in the flower. It is not quite perfect in all its parts. A beautiful flower must be simple, not spiked. It must have a fair stem and leaves. The stem is rather naked, and the leaves are for shade and moisture. It is fairest seen rising from amid brakes and hellebore, its lower part, or rather naked stein, concealed. Where the most beautiful wild