Dark shallow pools were so hidden under these grasses and plants that the presence of the black and yet clear water could not be perceived until the foot sank into it.
The sedge-birds kept just in front of me, now busy on a willow-stole, and concealed in the grasses and moss which grew out of the decaying wood; now among the sedges covering the mudbanks where the brook had silted up; now in the hedge which divided the willows from the meadow.
Still the peculiar sparrow-like note, the ringing chirp, came continually from their throats; the warm sultry day delighted them.
One clung to the side of a slender flag, which scarcely seemed strong enough to support it, yet did not even bend under its weight; then on again as I came nearer--but only two or three yards--to recommence singing immediately.
Pushing through the brushwood and past the reddish willow-poles, I entered a very thicket of flags, rising to the shoulder.

These were not ribbed or bayonet-shaped, but flat, like a long sword.

Three or four sprang from a single root, broad and tall, and beside them a stalk, and on it the yellow iris in fall flower.

The marsh seemed lit up with these bright lamps of colour under the shadowy willows and the dark alders.

There were a dozen at least within a few yards close around, and others dimly visible through the branches--three large yellow petals drooping, and on the curve of each brownish mottled markings or lines delicately stippled, beside them a rolled spike-like bloom not yet unfolded: a flower of the waters, crowned with gold, above the green dwellers by the shore.
Here the sedge-birds left me, doubling back to their favourite willow-stoles and sedges.