Martin. Perhaps that is the reason the poor poets think themselves
poets, on account of the beautiful things that are only reflected into
their minds from what is above? Besides the reflections, there were
alligators in the bayou, trying to slip away before we could see them,
and watching us with their stupid, senile eyes, sometimes from under
the thickest, prettiest flowery bowers; and turtles splashing into
the water ahead of us; and fish (silver-sided perch), looking like
reflections themselves, floating through the flower reflections,
nibbling their breakfast.
Our bayou had been running through swamp only a little more solid than
itself; in fact, there was no solidity but what came from the roots of
grasses. Now, the banks began to get firmer, from real soil in them.
We could see cattle in the distance, up to their necks in the lilies,
their heads and sharp-pointed horns coming up and going down in the
blue and white. Nothing makes cattle's heads appear handsomer, with
the sun just rising far, far away on the other side of them.
The sea-marsh cattle turned loose to pasture in the lush spring
beauty--turned loose in Elysium!
But the land was only partly land yet, and the cattle still cattle to
us. The rising sun made revelations, as our bayou carried us through a
drove in their Elysium, or it might have always been an Elysium to
us.
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