Shamrock

“ Oh the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock!
Chosen leaf.
Of Bard and Chief,
Old Erin's native Shamrock! ”

“ Once the girl was tempted to pull the vine up, but, on reflection, it occurred to her that she had better not. And she was right; for under its broad leaves her little plant found shelter from the scorching rays of the sun; and when the thunder-storms burst over the prairie, the shamrock would have been crushed by the great rain-drops, which fell thicker and faster than ever she had known them fall in Ireland, but for the same kindly protector. ”

“ Hence the name Sham-rock by which it has been known since 1882. It is a mere walk to reach the summit from the Pillar Fell. The climbing on the Shamrock is not quite so good as that on the neighbouring crag, but it cannot well be neglected. On the eastern side is the well-known Shamrock Gully, a magnificent looking cleft in the rocks, finishing with a huge V-shaped notch at the summit. A natural arch spans the gully half-way up, and an obstacle some few feet higher makes a pitch of unusual severity—‘one of the stiffest pitches in all 256 Cumberland.’ It was first climbed by Mr. ”

“ There's a dear little plant that grows in our Isle,
'Twas Saint Patrick himself sure that set it,
And the sun on his labour with pleasure did smile,
And with dew from his eye often wet it.
It shines thro' the bog, through the brake and the mire-land,
And he called it the dear little Shamrock of Ireland
The dear Little Shamrock, the sweet little Shamrock
The dear Little, sweet little Shamrock of Ireland. ”

“ Traders are always ready to take advantage of an ignorant public. Common sprats are called "sardines," the name of another and rarer fish, in order to conceal the fact that they are sprats; clarified horse fat is called "fresh country butter," and Irish regiments are made to decorate themselves with common clover under the delusion that it is the shamrock. Other plants have been from time to time utilised to usurp the title of "shamrock." ”

“ If a man goes into his garden, and seeks eagerly on hands and knees, we will suppose, for a four-leaved shamrock, I am not prepared to say that he will succeed in finding that rare and abnormal plant; but in his search after it, and the close attention thereby entailed, he will doubtless observe many beauties of vegetation, many curious arrangements of nature that have hitherto escaped his notice ”

“ A modest wreath of our own simple bay!
Shamrock and thistle and sweet roses gay,
Both red and white, with parted lips that smile,
Like some bright maiden of their native isle—
These, with the later maple, take, we pray,
To mingle with thy laurelled lily, long
Pride of the brave and theme of poet's song.
They err who deem us aliens. Are not we
Bretons and Normans, too? North, south and west
Gave us, like you, of blood and speech their best,
Here, re-united, one great race to be.
[A] On the occasion of his poems being crowned by the French Academy. ”

“ Every lady in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and generous act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: and when the gallant young Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the most timehonoured names in Albion’s history) placed on the finger of his blushing fiancée an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in the form of a fourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. ”

“ Bloom, Theatre, bloom, in the roseate blushes
Of beauty illumed by a love-breathing smile!
And flourish, ye pillars, [21] as green as the rushes
That pillow the nymphs of the Emerald Isle! VIII.
For dear is the Emerald Isle of the ocean,
Whose daughters are fair as the foam of the wave,
Whose sons, unaccustom'd to rebel commotion,
Though joyous, are sober—though peaceful, are brave. IX.
The shamrock their olive, sworn foe to a quarrel,
Protects from the thunder and lightning of rows;
Their sprig of shillelagh is nothing but laurel,
Which flourishes rapidly over their brows. X.
O! ”

“ Gulvert's kitchen garden, where they had been thrown, after having been taken from Eugene. And to this very day these shamrocks flourish—neither frost, nor cold, nor parching heat, nor inclement seasons being able to retard their growth; as if their verdure and flourishing vegetation were supplied from the pure and genuine Irish clay to which the bodies of the three O'Clerys have been long since reduced.
Paul now saw his people reduced by more than one half. When they left Ireland, they were seven in number ”

“ Sorrow no more, beloved, no more!
⁠For see, sweet emblem of hope untold,
The tears that soft on the shamrocks fall
⁠There turn to blossoms of gold.
Winter has gone with his blighting breath,
⁠No more to chill thee with cold or fear. ”

“ From May to September, is there a happier sight than a flock of chimney-swallows, just before or just after a shower, whizzing about the tops of the corn or coursing over the river, like so many streaks of black lightning, ridding the atmosphere of its overcharge of gnats! They cut across the rainbow and shoot into the rose- and pearl-washed sky, and drop—into the depths of a soot-clogged chimney!
These swallows used to build in caves and in clean, hollow trees; now they nest only in chimneys. So far have they advanced in civilization since the landing of the Pilgrims! ”

“ Shamus, therefore, like many others, set out to win the gold cup from the King of the Little People. He slung his harp on his shoulder and put a bit of bread and meat in a bag to stay him on his journey, which promised to be long.
Now, Shamus, having been reared in the country, knew that the Little People liked best to live in the hills and mountains. So to the mountains he went, making songs to lighten the long way. He made a song of running water, and of the wind in the trees, and of moonlight upon a grassy slope, and these he liked better than any songs he had yet composed. ”

“ She touched her mare forward, riding into the wind, delicate nostrils dilated; and he followed over the soundless cushion of brown needles, down aisles flanked by pillared pines whose crests swam in the upper breezes, filling all the forest with harmony.
And here, deep in the splendid forest, there was fire,—at first nothing but a thin, serpentine trail of ashes through moss and bedded needles; then, scarcely six inches in width, a smouldering, sinuous path from [137] which fine threads of smoke rose straight upward, vanishing in the woodland half-light. ”

“ So their money dwindled away; then a fine horse would go for a few bits of glass they took for precious stones, and by-and-by a couple of pigs or a pair of fine geese for a bit of ribbon to tie on a hat; and at last their land began to go.
One day Shamus was sitting by his fireplace warming himself, and to make a good fire he threw on a big heap of turf so that by-and-by it got roaring hot, and instead [103] of feeling chilly as he had before, Shamus got as hot as a spare-rib on a spit. ”

“ I looked round, and found myself in a wild-looking forest of ancient firs, where apparently the stroke of the axe had never been heard. A few steps more brought me amid huge rocks covered with moss and saxifragous plants, between which whole fields of snow and ice were extended. The air was intensely cold. I looked round, and the forest had disappeared behind me; a few steps more, and there was the stillness of death itself. The icy plain on which I stood stretched to an immeasurable distance, and a thick cloud rested upon it; the sun was of a red blood-colour at the verge of the horizon ”

“ The outline of Jebel Shammar is strangely fantastic, running up into spires and domes and pinnacles, with here and there a loop-hole through which you can see the sky, or a wonderful boulder perched like a rocking stone on the sky line. One rock was in shape just like a camel, and would deceive any person who did not know that a camel could not have climbed up there. ”

“ Natalie, plump and still rosy, sat in her lap; Shenton, a mere wisp of a boy, his face pale with a pallor beyond the pallor of the tropics, pressed his dark, curly head against her heart. Her other arm encircled Lewis and held him tight, for he was prone to fidget.
They sat on the west veranda and watched the sun plunge to the horizon from behind a bank of monster clouds. Before them stretched a valley, for Consolation Cottage was set upon a hill. Beyond the valley, and far away, rose a line of hills. Suddenly that line became a line of night. Black night seized upon all the earth ”

“ But when darkness falls it remembers its nest and speeds home to the rock, taking its place down in the little black burrow, while the mate comes forth and spreads its wings out over the heaving water, not to return, it may be, until the night and the day have passed and twilight falls again.
We landed on a ledge of Shag Rock, driving off a big bull sea-lion who claimed this particular slab of rock as his own. We backed up close to the shelf in a yawl boat, and as the waves rose and fell, watched our chance to leap from the stern of the little boat to the rock. ”

“ Samphire, very salt and fragrant, grows in the rocky honeycomb; then lentisk and beach-loving myrtle, both exceeding green and bushy; then rosemary and euphorbia above the reach of spray. Fishermen, with their long reeds, sit lazily perched upon black rocks above blue waves, sunning themselves as much as seeking sport. One distant tip of snow, seen far away behind the hills, reminds us of an alien, unremembered winter. While dreaming there, this fancy came into my 91head: Polyphemus was born yonder in the Gorbio Valley. ”

“ We scramble up to a sort of niche near its summit, p. 158whence, at a height of a hundred feet or more, we can overlook the whole extent of the plain and wait the sunrise. Yet before the highest crags of Shomer are gilt with its first rays, or the long giant shadows of the easterly chain have crossed the level, we see groups of peasants, who, driving their fruit and vegetable-laden asses before them, issue like little bands of ants from the mountain gorges around, and slowly approach on the tracks converging to the capital. ”

“ At last they heard a bird whistling in the woods at the back, and the shaman said:
'She is coming now; open the door and let her in,' and they flung the door wide, and there flew in a wild canary.
'Go and sit between the two sick persons,' said Djun, and the canary fluttered towards them, making such a noise with her wings that they were frightened and shrank away from her. And the shaman desired a man to tie the bird's wings to her side so that she might be still. Next a rolling sound such as thunder makes a long way off filled the air. ”

“ Our running feet beside or behind the sleds stirred our blood.
At the entrance to the defile, bordered by the white gates, I looked backward. There lay the village, the solemn, forest-clad hills behind, the white peaks dimly upreared against the stars of the morning sky and, last view of all, the somber shape of the Great House, with its windows alight with morning lamps, but obscured as if by parting tears.
A crowd of natives ran with us until the shaman ordered them back. The sleds streamed through the natural gateway and swerved in an abrupt turn. ”

“ These pretty animals live in herds, five, ten, and sometimes twenty together. They are merry, wise creatures, graceful and agile in their movements, and spring from cliff to cliff and across chasms with extraordinary lightness and sureness of foot.
In the winter the chamois seek the upper forests on the mountain slopes, where, under the shelter of the widely branching umbrella fir, the drooping boughs of which hang almost to the ground, they find snug quarters, and long dry grass for winter provender.
The opening of spring in the Swiss Alps is attended by many wonderful phenomena. ”

“ The cloth is the shaman’s pay for his services, and is furnished by his employer, who sometimes also supplies the beads. There are many formulas for conjuring with the beads, which are used on almost all important occasions, and differences also in the details of the ceremony, but the general practice is the same in all cases. The shaman selects a bend in the river where his client can look toward the east while facing up stream. ”

“ For a long time high and rough mountains had been in sight which we constantly approached. We climbed over the low and gently rolling foot-hills to a place where the ascent must inevitably be more steep, and the shaman called another halt.
“Make fire,” he brusquely commanded his men. “The dogs must rest,” and then sat on the edge of my sled with his arms folded and stared upward at the dimming southern mountaintops whose peaks were still out lined against the horizon. ”

“ I assure you it is very amusing to see a herd of twenty or thirty chamois cross at a headlong pace a vast field of snow, or glacier, where they bound over the crevasses in play.
"One would say they were reindeers in a Lapland scene. It is only at night that they come down into the valleys. In the moonlight they come out of the moraines, and go to pasture on the grassy slopes or in the forest adjoining the glaciers. During the day they go up again into the snow, for which they have an extraordinary love, and in which they skip and play, amusing themselves like a band of scholars in play hours. ”

“ Lake Champlain, in its calm loveliness, shone brightly under the morning sun, its surface unruffled by the wind, and not a sail or boat was visible in all the blue extent of its far stretching vista. The gorgeous azalias were still in their bloom, so were the snowy blossoms of the sumach, and the glorious yellow light fell in flakes between the towering pines of the ancient forest, while the dewy prairie grass glittered as it rippled beneath the pleasant breeze. ”