'Shining lines of ripples drew out slowly from the the pointed wooden floats of the catamaran, the flat green leaves of the water lilies seemed to be gliding past. The Longpond lay silent in the summer morning; the sun splashes in front, seen through the lashes of the lids closed in dreamy contentment, were like glittering birds in flight. A wood pigeon was cooing in a fir tree on a distant shore, a family of blue titmice were wheezing and saying, chitter-chee, chitter chee, as they flitted among the willows leaning out of the bank. So peaceful was the shining water, with the faint haze of the summer morning not yet cleared by the sun high over the beech trees: the blinding spiky sun into which the swallows vanished. So fare into the blue air were they flying that the boy sitting still on the cracked wooden seat above the two floats could hear no sound of their twittering. It must be like this after death he thought, seeing the blue of heaven in the water beside him.
from Chapter 9, page 95, of 'Dandelion Days' - Henry Williamson, written in 1922.
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