Rift

“ For the autumn leaves have covered
And hid the sodden ground.
[Pg 128]
THERE IS A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS.
Though life may be gloomy,
And dark be thy way,
No light in thy pathway,
Not even one ray.
Look up to the heavens;
There’s a rift in the clouds.
Though life may be warfare,
Thy heart have no peace,
Fear not, thou wilt conquer,
Thy heart have surcease.
Look upward, not downward,
There’s a rift in the clouds.
Though friends may prove faithless,
And false unto thee;
There may be a reason
That thou dost not see.
Have charity always,
[Pg 129] And see rift in the clouds. ”

“ On one side was a rock, forming a wall rugged and projecting above; at the bottom of the rock was a rift, somewhat resembling a coffin in shape, and not much larger in dimensious: this rift terminated on the opposite side of the rock in an opening that was too small for the body of a man to pass: the distance between each entrance was twice the length of a man. ”

“ Once or twice black objects loom up near us,—the wrecks of houses floating by. There is a slight rift in the sky towards the north, and a few bearing stars to guide us over the waste. As we penetrate into shallower water, it is deemed advisable to divide our party into smaller boats, and diverge over the submerged prairie. ”

“ There are two red flannel dresses that look exactly alike. Put them on, and while you are fixing up, I will go out and look at the river.
The old man walked to the head of the island. The storm had ceased, and the moon was shining brightly. The waves continued to roll over the rift and dash against the rocks. Something appeared on the rift that had the appearance of being a human being. On examination, there appeared to be several of them all huddled in one mass. No signs of life were visible, and the waves continued to pound their bodies against the rocks. ”

“ On June 10 Mr. Douglass detected a second rift in the cap backing the range of slopes. And on June 13 I noticed that behind the bright points the snow fell off shaded to this rift. Meanwhile a third rift had been made out by him, running from longitude 170 degrees to longitude 90 degrees,—very nearly, therefore, at right angles to the first rift and debouching into it. Bright points continued to be seen at various points to the westward round the cap. They are marked by crosses on the chart. ”

“ But not a foe moved, except to conceal his person behind some cover; and every eye was riveted on the two remaining adventurers. In less time than has been necessary to record these occurrences, the canoe was whirling and tossing in the rift, while both the savages had stretched themselves in its bottom, as the only means of preserving the equilibrium. This natural expedient soon failed them; for, striking a rock, the light draft rolled over, and the two warriors were thrown into the river. The water is seldom deep on a rift, except in particular places where it may have worn channels ”

“ Since steep vertical walls, of the height here in question, would make much too great demands on the resistance to pressure of the rocks, inclined gliding planes of slipping are formed simultaneously with the rift, or in place of it, along which the marginal parts of both portions of the block sink into the rift as it opens, to the accompaniment of numerous local earthquakes, so that only a rift-valley of moderate depth is exposed to view, with its floor formed of faulted blocks of the same series of rocks as those which occur in situ high up on the margin of the trough. ”

“ The living colony—the entire animal—is surrounded by armor, the body is armor-plated, the keratin of the skin is the armor-plating. Once a rift occurs in the armor, a crack, a split, a crevice, an abrasion, a cut or a puncture, it matters not which, then the entrance of our foes is a possibility, nay, a probability. ”

“ The Drift marks probably the most awful convulsion and catastrophe that has ever fallen upon the globe. The deposit of these continental masses of clay, sand, and gravel was but one of the features of the apalling event. In addition to this the earth at the same time was cleft with great cracks or fissures, which reached down through many miles of the planet's crust to the central fires and released the boiling rocks imprisoned in its bosom, and these poured to the surface, as igneous, intrusive, or trap-rocks. ”

“ Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst
Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell,
While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.
He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear,
Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror
And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead. ”

“ All night a fierce northeast snow-storm had been hissing and drifting through the frozen air, pelting angrily at the shuttered and curtained windows of the rich, and shrieking with scornful laughter as it forced its way through the ill-fitting casements and loose doors of the poor, clutching at them with icy fingers as they cowered over their poor fires, and spreading over the garret-beds in which they sought to hide from him a premature shroud of cold white snow. ”

“ From the second view point mountains are seen descending on a pleasanter part of the Shayok valley in grey, yellow, or vermilion masses of naked rock, 7,000 and 8,000 feet in height, above which rise snow-capped peaks sending out fantastic spurs and buttresses, while the colossal walls of rock are cleft by rifts as colossal. ”

“ Here we see the wreck and ruin of the strife; the field is silent now, given to the dead, the beast of prey and night. A young soldier lies upon the ground; the snow is falling fast around his form; the lonely mountain peaks rise up on every side; the wreck of war is all about. His uniform is soiled and stained, a spot of red is seen upon his breast. It is not the color that his country wove upon his coat to catch his eye and bait him to his death ”

“ The reverberating boom and the tremor of earth were varied from time to time by the splintering crash of houses crushing and the increase of uproar, as scores of luckless inhabitants went down under the falling rock. Giant cranes with huge, ludicrous awkward arms, heaved up pots of burning pitch and oil and flung them ponderously into the city to do whatever horror of fire and torture had not been done by the engines. Hourly the rattle of small stones increased, merely to attract the attention of the citizens to an activity to which they were so accustomed that it was almost unnoticed. ”

“ For nine long months, through snow and rain and sunshine, from the long nights to the long pitiless days, these two walls had remained the same, sheltering the same lurking enmities though the individuals who temporarily incarnated them came and went. Sometimes ablaze with stabs of darting flame, erupting bombs lobbed with a deceptive innocent slowness through the air, belching a mass of men who ran and stumbled and fell in an infinite variety of ways—men who shouted and who screamed so that their voices pierced the appalling uproar ”

“ Scores of thunderbolts, red and flaming, leaped out of the blackness of cloud above, and, hissing as they came, wrought awful death among the mobs upon which they descended. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, making a new horror.
The thunder and rumble beneath the earth increased. The whole surface of the city heaved like the swell of a storm-tossed sea. Chasms, fissures, gulfs yawned every-where, and thousands of people toppled into the opened earth. ”

“ The people of the abyss had nothing to lose but the misery and pain of living. And to gain? —nothing, save one final, awful glut of vengeance. And as I looked the thought came to me that in that rushing stream of human lava were men, comrades and heroes, whose mission had been to rouse the abysmal beast and to keep the enemy occupied in coping with it. ”

“ At length, a brisk breeze sprang up in the north-west, and the battle cloud rolled heavily away before it from the field, disclosing, not only the relative positions of the opposing forces, but the awful picture of carnage that every where strewed the blackened earth. ”

“ A sudden shot, off to the right front—a swift succession of loud reports—woke wild echoes from unseen cliffs. High up on the glacier, to the left of the Austrian position, flare after flare was flung into the sky, eerily illuminant, plucking strange rock-forms into grotesque relief. There was a fierce shout that rolled in repeated reverberation, a wild tumult of voices in a crisis of human lives, confused shots, isolated and in irregular volleys, the dull thudding explosions of bombs. The first company was attacking. ”

“ The chariots of the storm came thundering down the slopes of the sky, and the forest shivered, and bent, and tossed its thousands of arms in agony. Thick limbs were rent from writhing, groaning bodies, and cast furiously down. Some veteran giants, weakened by the natural decay of years, mingled their death-cry with the hoarse bellow of the destroying wind and fell crashing and quivering to the earth. ”

“ With dreadful and overwhelming violence their huge disjointed masses rolled from their elevated summits, and gathering a new impetus in their headlong course, rushed down the sides of the mountain, and bounding from point to point with an appalling crash, heaped destruction on the advancing enemy. ”

“ The whole of the front wall of the old fortress had fallen outward, completely blocking the path between the hillside and the river, and over the ruins hundreds of men were streaming down into the plain, swinging their weapons aloft and screaming out their shrill and savage war-cries. ”

“ Now commenced a scene to which nothing I ever before conceived of war could in any degree compare: the whole ground, covered with combustibles of every deadly and destructive contrivance, was rent open with a crash; the huge masses of masonry bounded into the air like things of no weight; the ringing clangor of the iron howitzers, the crackling of the fuses, the blazing splinters, the shouts of defiance, the more than savage yell of those in whose ranks alone the dead and the dying were numbered, made up a mass of sights and sounds almost maddening with their excitement. ”

“ The squares, where broken by the impetuous cavalry, contracted without yielding an inch of ground; inexhaustible in canister they produced an explosion in the midst of the assailants. The aspect of this combat was monstrous: these squares were no longer battalions, but craters; these cuirassiers were no longer cavalry, but a tempest,—each square was a volcano attacked by a storm; the lava combated the lightning. ”

“ A month has passed; and the siege has rapidly advanced, and brought many a sad change to the position of the defenders. There have been assaults and sallies, mines and countermines, without number; the bastions are in many places a heap of ruins, smashed with shot and by the explosion of mines. There are some where [252] the fire is so thick and continual, that to show yourself for a moment on them is certain death. ”

“ During the battle, for several days I went with other men to various points of view, trying to see something of the human conflict from slag heaps and rising ground, but could only see the swirl and flurry of gun-fire and the smoke of shells mixing with wet mist, and the backwash of wounded and prisoners, and the traffic of guns, and wagons, and supporting troops. Like an ant on the edge of a volcano I sat among the slag heaps with gunner observers, who were listening at telephones dumped down in the fields and connected with artillery brigades and field batteries. ”

“ Shut up in the cellars with the dead, pinched with famine, while the pestilence rioted without mercy and without resistance, they heard around them the incessant bursting of bombs, and thunder of artillery, and explosions of mines, and crash of falling houses, till the city shook, night and day, as within the grasp of an earthquake. Thousands fell daily, and the town was a mass of ruins. Yet, unconquered and apparently unconquerable, the inhabitants struggled on. ”

“ The explosion of mines, the crash of falling buildings, the roar of cannon and musketry, the shouts of the combatants continually filled the air, while a cloud of smoke and dust hung constantly over the city as the terrible scene of warfare continued day after day. ”

“ Each time the great waves receded from those snow-curtained cliffs, they dragged the struggling wreck back a few fathoms, in spite of her powerful screw urging her to the rocks, and when they once again added their own mighty force and rush to her speed the concussions were fearful and death-dealing, not the best tempered steel or iron plates could stand against the united efforts of waves, winds and steam. ”

“ Up you go, up and up, and life dies out. Chaos and ruin reign supreme. Headlong steeps yawn beside your path, losing their depths in darkness. Great fragments of rock cover all the ground, lie heaped, pile upon pile, jagged, gray, tilted into a thousand sharp angles, refusing a foothold, or offering it treacherously. Wild work has been here; and these gigantic wrecks bear silent witness of the uproar. ”

“ We saw the blasting from over yonder, and the explosion was extremely effective. You were enthroned yonder on the height like the mountain-sprite in his own person--all the others like ministering gnomes at your feet--a wave of your hand, and with the sound of muffled thunder the cliffs were split and sank in ruins--a genuine glimpse of fairyland! ”

“ Houses are in flames, and forests. Here and there in the distance camp-fires are burning and trench-rockets burst in showers, making the valley seem like [68] a great fiery furnace, an ocean of flame.
How insignificant are our own troubles in the presence of these heaped up ruins, this destruction of men and things!
On the highest tree of the Aulnois woods I have just seen a little light, square in shape, which alternately appears and disappears. ”