see the wind. Now who can do that? I see the dreams that he has in his hat; I see him snorting them out as he goes— Out at his stupid old trumpet-nose. Ten thousand things that you couldn’t think I write them down with pen and ink. Howlowlwhooloolwhitit that’s wit. “You may call it learning—’tis mother-wit. No one else sees the lady-moon sit On the sea, her nest, all night, but the owl, Hatching the boats and the long-legged fowl. When the oysters gape to sing by rote, She crams a pearl down each stupid throat. Howlowlwhitit that’s wit, there’s a fowl!”
And so singing, he threw the book in Richard’s face, spread out his great, silent, soft wings, and sped away into the depths of the tree. When the book struck Richard, he found that it was only a lump of wet moss.