Plumule

“ The cloud passes on, and often the sinking sun comes out from behind it; the late hushed and frightened birds gush forth with new song; myriad drops hang glittering on the spray; the green is flushed with a brighter, fresher hue, and the glowing rainbow smiles serenely from the dark, retiring, and still grumbling storm. ”

“ The soft wind lifts the rain-mist, flurries it, and spends
Its grief in mournful sighs, drifting from field to field,
Soaking the draggled sprays which the low hedges wield
As they labour in the wet and the load of the wind.
The last light is dimming; night comes on behind. ”

“ The plum is the poet’s tree, and symbolic of long life, the snowy blossoms upon the gnarled, mossy, and unresponsive branches showing that a vital current still animates it, and the heart lives. At New-years a dwarf-plum is the ornament of every home, and to give one is to wish your friend length of days. Ume, the plum blossom, has a fresh, delicate, elusive, and peculiar fragrance, which in the warm sun and open air is almost intoxicating, but in a closed room becomes heavy and cloying. ”

“ See where, broadest and stillest, the wave expands to the full smile of the setting sun, and the willow that trembles on the breeze, and the oak that stands firm in the storm, are reflected back, peaceful both, from the clear glass of the tides. ”

“ A cloud, heavy with rain, drifts across the sky, and big, cool drops splash with a hissing noise in the fire, upon our upturned faces, upon the warm, flower-sown earth which exhales, like incense, the odours of sun-heated soil and summer shower. ”

“ Sometimes, for hours, there would come a miracle of blue sky, white cloud, and yellow light, but always between dark and dark the rain would fall and the mist creep up the mountains and steam from the tops—only to roll together from either range, drip back into the valleys, and lift, straightway, as mist again. ”

“ As the immense body of water leaps over this vast precipice, it breaks into a soft spray, which waves like a plume in the wind. At times, when the rays of the sun strike this spray, a rainbow is formed which stretches itself across the deep chasm, and produces a beautiful effect. ”

“ We beheld an immense body of water fall two hundred and fifty feet, dashing from rock to rock, and casting a spray which formed a mist around it, in the midst of which hung a multitude of sunbows, which faded or became unspeakably vivid, as the inconstant sun shone through the clouds. ”

“ A tiny ruffled plume, a feather caught up by the breeze with the momentary shadow it casts, even an intrusive bough or blade of grass—all are reproduced with such rigid faithfulness and conspicuous effect that what are in fact merest minute details assume a wholly false proportion, mislead the eye, and disguise the whole picture. ”

“ Now the storm is over, the sky is clear, the last rolling thunder-wave is spent on the peaks, and where are the raindrops now—what has become of all the shining throng? In winged vapor rising some are already hastening back to the sky, some have gone into the plants, creeping through invisible doors into the round rooms of cells, some are locked in crystals of ice, some in rock crystals, some in porous moraines to keep their small springs flowing, some have gone journeying on in the rivers to join the larger raindrop of the ocean. ”

“ The first coming of snow, the noise of wind in trees, the gathering murmur of the tide heard in the night’s darkness and silence, music or songs borne across water, the first falling meteors with their terrifying suggestion that all these familiar stellar fires may likewise at any time be blown abroad by some obscure and awful wind, the furtive whisperings and inexplicable confused speech of running waters, of such are these primitive and unforgettable experiences. ”

“ At first the plume shone, from base to top, with a golden effulgence; but this gradually gave place to that lovely tint which I can only describe as rose dorée, the warm colour momentarily intensifying in tone until it suffused the entire cloud with such a roseate blush that all the hills beneath, and all the fast-darkening plain, blushed in response.
For twenty minutes that glowing plume of softly rounded, feathery cloud stood framed against its wondrous blue-green background, the rosy colour of the cloud deepening as the land beneath it gathered blackness. ”

“ For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their under-side turns to the sun. ”

“ Certainly we do more than hear the sound of the wind; its presence is obvious to three of the senses. We feel the chill or the fury of the blast; and, as it sweeps across the ocean, or the forest, or the field of corn, we see how the blades rise and fall in graceful curves, and the trees bend, and the waters sink and swell into waves which are the measure of its strength. ”

“ Baby of the cloud, rain is carried long enough within that troubled breast to make all the multitude of days unlike each other. Rain, as the end of the cloud, divides light and withholds it; in its flight warning away the sun, and in its final fall dismissing shadow. ”

“ Moisture into the clouds. And when therein
The seeds of water so many in many ways
Have come together, augmented from all sides,
The close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge
Their rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo,
The wind's force crowds them, and the very excess
Of storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng)
Giveth an urge and pressure from above
And makes the rains out-pour. ”

“ They bore a hole in the sky, and let you up into a pool of deep, stagnant blue, marked off by the clear round edges of imperturbable, impenetrable cloud on all sides—beautiful in positive color, but totally destitute of that exquisite gradation and change, that fleeting, panting, hesitating effort, with which the first glance of the natural sky is shed through the turbulence of the earth-storm. ”

“ So the white spray rushes along the low broken wall of rocks, the sun gleams on the flying fragments of the wave, again it sinks, and the rhythmic motion holds the mind, as an invisible force holds back the tide. ”

“ The masses of water, hissing and smoking under the furious pelting of the rain, flung themselves upon the hapless Bluebird, laboring heavily in the trough of the waves, or staggering over their summits. A constant glare lit the heaving, tossing world of waters, and the air became one roar of wind, rain, and thunder. ”

“ In the first, "The Windmill," which is illustrated, the motion of the wind and of the world it blows is dazzling. The field of, golden grain, bright in the glow of the sun that has just broken through the rain clouds, is quivering with graceful undulations. ”

“ Above itself it puts up whitish fingers of flowers, naked on the blue sky. And in the wind these fingers of flowers in the bare blue sky sway, sway with the reeling, roundward motion of tree-tips in a wind. ”

“ I could not go abroad in snow—it would settle on me and expose me. Rain, too, would make me a watery outline, a glistening surface of a man—a bubble. And fog—I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog, a surface, a greasy glimmer of humanity. ”

“ Let the clouds appear as driven by tempestuous winds against the summits of lofty mountains, enveloping those mountains, and breaking and recoiling with redoubled force, like waves against a rocky shore. The air should be rendered awfully dark, by the mist, dust, and thick clouds. ”

“ The wind blew the cloud low down near the earth till it found itself over a big garden, in which there were all sorts of trees and shrubs, and such soft green grass as the cloud had never seen before. ”

“ When the winds stir the leaves among the poplars, and the long shadows fall athwart the fields; when the winds rise at night, and the branches scrape and crack above the moonlit snow; when in the long hot days the earth is bathed in fragrance, and all the little creatures of the fields are silent ”

“ But then these clouds, you will tell me, that hover about the mountain, all wing, all plumage, with just so much of substance for light to live in them—these very clouds can descend, and thicken, and blacken, and cover all things with an inexpressible gloom. ”

“ A playful performance on the wind succeeds. Expanding his soft velvet-like plumage, one glides with quivering pinions to the centre of the open space, singing as he flies, then turns with a rapid whirring sound from his wings--somewhat like a child's rattle--and returns to his place again. ”

“ Black clouds sink down towards the sea, violent waterspouts suck up the water in spiral columns which spread out above like the crowns of pine-trees, and deluges of rain come down, lasting sometimes for weeks. Everything becomes wet and sodden, and it is useless to try to light a fire with matches. ”

“ Rapidly this bears down upon us, increasing in size as it comes, till it reaches towards the zenith, blotting out the storm clouds, mountains, and plain with a pall as dense as a curtain. For those in the cloud the wind is burning hot [5] ; the fine dust covers the face, cakes the eyelashes and even the teeth. ”

“ In the course of the summer they assume nearly the same grey plumage that their parents wear, except that the elongated plumes, which in the adults form a graceful covering of the hinder parts of the body, are comparatively undeveloped, and the clear black, white and red (the last being due to a patch of papillose skin of that colour) of the head and neck are as yet indistinct. ”

“ As when the blade shoots through the yielding earth, the clouds collect and we await the welcome shower, then a fierce wind drives the big clouds away, and so with disappointed hope we watch the dried-up field! ”

“ It is more dashing, rippling, sparkling, living this windy but clear day, never smooth, but ever varying in its degree of motion and depth of blue, as the wind is more or less strong, rising and falling. ”

“ As the girls grew used to the thunderous sounds they delighted to speculate from which bastion, or ledge, or flowering bush, would come that little puff of smoke, to be followed by the lightning and thunder of man's invention, scarcely less terrible than those of nature's cloud contests. ”

“ The trees and the plants bent towards the earth almost seem as though they wished to follow the rushing wind, with their boughs wrenched from their natural direction and their foliage all disordered and distorted. Of the men who are to be seen, some are fallen and entangled in their clothes and almost unrecognizable on account of the dust, and those who remain standing may be behind some tree, clutching hold of it so that the wind may not tear them away; others, with their hands over their eyes on account of the dust, stoop towards the ground, with their clothes and hair streaming to the wind. ”

“ He must make all his lights and shades fall one way, and let every thing have its proper motion: as trees shaken by the wind, the small boughs bending more and the large ones less; water agitated by the wind, and dashing against ships or boats, or falling from a precipice upon rocks and stones, and spirting up again into the air, and sprinkling all about; clouds also in the air now gathered with the winds ”

“ Hungrily the wind rushes through the clefts and fissures of the earth, sweeps out dust, sand, and gravel, hurls this even into the clouds, and bears it onwards with such force that it recoils stinging and rattling from hard surfaces. ”

“ The pines were evidently accepting the benefactions of the storm in the same whole-souled manner; and when I looked down among the budding hazels, and still lower to the young violets and fern-tufts on the rocks, I noticed the same divine methods of giving and taking, and the same exquisite adaptations of what seems an outbreak of violent and uncontrollable force to the purposes of beautiful and delicate life. Calms like sleep come upon landscapes, just as they do on people and trees, and storms awaken them in the same way. ”

“ The wind blows bleak across the prairies and the brittle snow-flakes that beat on the glass outside the iron-bars have a sound like the whirr of swords. I wish the wind would blow always, for it lays a salve on my soul. ”

“ And with the changing angle of the myriad yellow heads the colour also changes, till gradually there swims upon the mind the impression of some huge and shadowy image that flies above the field⁠—some personal deity of wind, some djin of air. One almost sees the spirit of the wind.⁠ ⁠... ”

“ Its summer plumage so exactly harmonizes with the lichen-coloured stones among which it delights to sit, that a person may walk through a flock of them without seeing a single bird; while in winter its white plumage is an almost equal protection. ”

“ The cloud veils an angry sun, or, more terribly, lets fly an angry ray, suddenly bright upon tree and tower, with iron-grey storm for a background. Or when anger had but threatened, the cloud reveals him, gentle beyond hope. It makes peace, constantly, just before sunset.
It is in the confidence of the winds, and wears their colours. There is a heavenly game, on south-west wind days, when the clouds are bowled by a breeze from behind the evening. They are round and brilliant, and come leaping up from the horizon for hours. This is a frolic and haphazard sky. ”