Sombrero

“ Against the ice-white wall of light in the west Skeleton trees bow down in a stream of air. Leaves, black leaves and smoke, are blown on the wind; Mount upward past my window; swoop again; In a sharp silence, loudly, loudly falls The first cold drop, striking a shriveled leaf.... Doom and dusk for the earth! Upward I reach To draw chill curtains and shut out the dark, Pausing an instant, with uplifted hand, To watch, between black ruined portals of cloud, One star,—the tottering portals fall and crush it. ”

“ The hard, set pose devoid of grace, the bent, dried ears once ever on the alert, the glassy, artificial eyes in sockets once tenanted by living balls of fire that glowed in the darkness of the night—all are unreal and expressionless. ”

“ Hands of God
Fashioned of clouds
Have finger tips that balance the almond white moon.
The pale sky is a flower
White tipped and pink tipped with dawn.
White hands of God gather the blossoms with fingers that hold me,
Cloud fingers like milk in the azure night,
Weaving strong chords.
DESTINY I am lost in the vast cave of night.
No sound but the far-off tinkle of stars,
And the cry of a bird
Muffled in shadows.
The light flows in remotely
Through the hollow moon,
Dim strange brilliance
From waters beyond the sky. ”

“ At night to sleep in a bag of fur and wool, by day the steely wind, or the air shaking with a filmy powder of frost; while the illimitably distant sun made the tiny flakes sparkle like silver—a poudre day, when the face and hands are most like to be frozen, and all so still and white and passionless, yet aching with energy. ”

“ On a calm, hot day, when the air near the surface of the ground is seen to quiver in the sunlight: The summer-colt rides, or: The summer-goose flackers; the Northern Lights are the Merry Dancers; heavy masses of fleecy white cloud are Wool-packs, or they are the Shepherd’s Flock. The evening star becomes the Shepherd’s Lamp, whilst the moon, more prosaically, does duty as the Parish Lantern. ”

“ In the compass of the heavens, without a cloud even as diminutive as a butterfly to screen his blinding rays, the sun appears from day to day, and for months, like an enormous ruby set in a burnished dome of brass, whence descends a fiery glow almost akin to that derivable from the focus of a burning-glass. ”

“ The faint blurred shadows of the delicately budded trees in spring! the crisp sure ones of the winter; sunlight-shadows, and moonlight-shadows; and, above all, oh, yes, and dearer than all, the firelight shadows! And all the things that shadows do! The quaintness, and fidelity of them; and the grotesquerie of them! The way they run when you run, and stand still on the very instant that you stand still! A nimble people, so that their following of you is nearly like a game and it is impossible to catch them napping. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Out of the earth, the dust, the crystals of frost that bind
themselves like a tight crown over our heads.
Through the mould and the frost our hair and fingers shall
prick their spears of pallor and flame, and in the green
ardour of our up-rushing leaves the red goblets of fire
shall open, and masses of white flowers, milky as the star-sprays
that droop over Heaven, shall splash their bright
foam from the darkness, as waves that rise and break into
a fountain of blossoms. ”

“ The nocturnal sky is the great coffin; to sweep the sky of night, we must have a brush; to sunder the good grain from the bad during the night, as the cruel mother-in-law commands, we must have a sieve; the child-sun arrives, in the twilight, in the bottom of the coffin, at the doorstep of the royal palace, and presents to the maiden aurora (the Vedic cleaner or purifier) the brush and the sieve. The sun, at twilight, is neither in nor out. ”

“ Night, too, that season for the rendezvous of underbrush and tangle-wood horrors, was fast gathering its forces in the depths of the forest, and beneath the shadows of the thick bushes, shrouding, as with a dark mist, each object on the earth's surface, creeping up the trunks of the old trees, and noiselessly stealing away the light in which they had proudly spread their green foliage, while in lieu of their showy garb he clad them in a temporary mourning. ”

“ With the darkness came the stars, leaping into the black arch of heaven, great and of a number beyond all counting; the night-wind turned the heat of the day to sudden coolness, sweeping softly among the ruins. The mounds of earth, softened in outline by the darkness, loomed vast and shadowlike, melting into the sombre mystery of the night. ”

“ On a midsummer night, on a night that was eerie with stars,
In a wood too deep for a single star to look through,
You led down a path whose turnings you knew in the darkness,
But the scent of the dew-dripping cedars was all that I knew. ”

“ Should it assist you to while away some rainy morning of life, and at the same time lead you to remember that, above the clouds which lour so heavily, the blue heaven lies in its deep tranquillity, and the glorious sun still shines brightly, able, when it shall be God’s good pleasure, to dispel the darkness that oppresses you, and again shed its light and warmth into your spirit—the end for which this sketch has been traced will be answered. ”

“ Gather a balm to heal some earth-born sorrow,
When their glad day is done.
THE SHEPHERD WIND When hills and plains are powdered white,
And bitter cold the north wind blows,
Upon my window in the night
A fairy-garden grows. ”

“ Gradually, as he sat there on horseback, the beautiful orb of night rose up from behind the trees, and with her peculiar power of dispersing the clouds and shadows that obstruct her way, she was seen struggling with and overcoming the vapours of the night; sometimes, like a veiled but still lovely countenance, beaming through a thin film of white mist which grew radiant with her radiance; sometimes hidden for a single instant behind a dark mass which swept over her with gilded edges; sometimes bursting forth from a dark cloud, with pure effulgence, like sudden joy succeeding despair. ”

“ At night, when the fatal sun had reluctantly disappeared in a mass of pink and violet clouds, the life-bringing breeze would blow in fresh and salt from the far-away sea, and all living creatures would revive. ”

“ This morning sky, after the night's tempest, is a pure and dazzling blue. The air—the delicious air!—is full of sweet resinous odors, shed from the countless pine-boughs broken and strewn by the gale. ”

“ At sunset, on such a day, as evening calmness settles down, weird mountain shadows begin to move across the dimly-lighted glens; and when darkness has fallen, there is a mystic stillness, broken only by the ceaseless throbbing of the sea-waves, the flow of brooks, and the voices of the night. ”

“ Its light comes flooding down upon the earth, pure silver with very black shadows. Then the night breeze begins to blow, very softly, very gently, and the trees give out their odour to the night, which woos them so much more sweetly than the day, till the air is heavy with incense. ”

“ Yet the air is full of faint, indistinguishable sounds, the opening of leaves perhaps, the patter of spent petals, the fall of pine needles, and the movements of night-wandering creatures. And to every sound the darkness lends a touch of mystery. ”

“ With the approach of morning the air grows cooler, and slumber comes,—a slumber of exhaustion, dreamless and sickly; and perhaps when you would rise with the sun you feel such a dizziness, such a numbness, such a torpor, that only by the most intense effort can you keep your feet for the first five minutes. You experience a sensation that recalls the poet's fancy of death-in-life, or old stories of sudden rising from the grave: it is as though all the electricity of will had ebbed away,—all the vital force evaporated, in the heat of the night.... ”

“ The sky is a soft, pale blue; and the stars, fading rear the brilliant moon, appear like dust raised by her chariot wheels. Under the trees on our right a huge serpent, the scales of which are human beings, turns, winds, bends, parts and rejoins in a circular promenade. ”

“ To such a one the range at first would appear as a gigantic ridge of clouds heaped up on the horizon, but differing in hue according to the time of day; of a bluish black in the morning, they fade into shades of grey, transparently pale in the full daylight, till the sinking sun suffuses them with a crimson blush, and they continue shining through the long twilight like a wall of fire at the far end of the dusky plain. ”

“ The long aisles of trees that in the morning only struck me as enchantingly peaceful and shady, gradually filled with strangely terrifying shadows; the hue of the broad swards deepened into a darkness I did not dare interpret, whilst in the house, in its every passage, nook, and corner, a gloom arose that, seeming to come from the very bowels of the earth, brought with it every possible suggestion of bogey. ”

“ The moon shone brightly over the pure white landscape, and, as far as the eye could range, nought was to be seen but leafless trees, which bowed and shook in a stiff north-west breeze, and their melancholy flutterings seemed to be like gentle moans and sighings at the white death-like pall which covered nature far and wide. ”

“ The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
The shadow of the child that goes to bed—
All the wicked shadows coming, tramp, tramp, tramp,
With the black night overhead.
[76]
WINTER-TIME
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.
Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise ”

“ The indescribable rumour of the sunflood followed. As the old Celtic poets tell us, the noise of the sunfire on the waves at daybreak is audible for those who have ears to hear. So may be heard the sudden rush and sweep of the sunbeams when they first stream upon a wood. ”

“ The wind is usually gone; the air is soft, and the fragrance of the fields fills it like a perfume. The noises of the day and of the creatures that go about by day cease, and the noises of the night and of the creatures that haunt the night begin. ”

“ Through the open windows came the evening wind, laden with the fragrance of flowers, the murmur of falling waters, the whisper of leaves, and the cheery chirp of insects—those night songsters who begin when the birds go to sleep—nature’s vesper choir. ”

“ From the grandeur of the setting sun pale shadows are cast of posts and cows and houses and railings and heaps of stones. Unexpectedly they faint away as something steals upon the splendour of the radiant disc and stops the brightness of the rays. Myriads of wisps of cloud, like tiny hands, assist at the eclipse, laying the sun to rest in a dreadful bloody bath, agonising and bleeding and growing less and going down, with evil triumphing over good. ”

“ Imagine yourself nipped by a biting frost coming suddenly in to such a scene of warmth and ease, to lose yourself in the depths of an enormous spring chair, and gaze in that wilderness of red, while the wood crackles, and blue flickers up like a phantom light in the blazing scarlet. ”

“ A cloud had for some days past hung over the habitual gaiety of the cheery little man, a cloud neither black with thunder nor leaden with low-hanging rain, but rather one of those pearly transparencies that flutter about sunset skies, catching and transmuting every glorious glow of crimson and gold and purple. ”

“ The fertile clouds, drooping and condensing in brooding silence, seem to be thoughtfully examining the forests and streams with reference to the work that lies before them. At length, all their plans perfected, tufted flakes and single starry crystals come in sight, solemnly swirling and glinting to their blessed appointed places; and soon the busy throng fills the sky and makes darkness like night. ”

“ Through blood and brain courses and speeds exultingly the gentle call: 'the spring is come!' Then all the little spirits feel the sweet waves, and creep with laughing eyes out of their dark corners; they stretch their delicate little crystal limbs, and plunge to bathe in the wine-flood, and plash and shoot, and rise quivering out again, and shake their sparkling spirits' wings, that, as they rustle, the clear drops fall from the little plumes. ”

“ No season of regrets, rather snatch of minutes, the oasis span of a single candle. Who knows? The sun nudging petals at the close of another day. Your eyelids casting shrouds (and shadows) , the long funeral walk of your hair across the pillow. Then awakening. You gathering tresses much as a bird trilling feathers. ”

“ Of swaying girls who thronged these ordered ways
Like windy tulips blowing in their beds.
Stones may remember laughter down a hall,
And eyes more bright than blossoms in the grass,—
A dream to haunt them—after all and all—
When they are dust with dusty things that pass.
So that some wind of beauty, waking then,
Whose breath shall be new summertimes for earth,
Will stir these scattered stones to dreams, again,
Of blowing shapes, of brightening eyes and mirth,
And corridors, like windy tulip beds,
Of swaying girls and beautiful, bright heads.
[74]
AT ELSINORE
... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sleep-druggèd river that carries the wreckage of cities out sea-ward.
Slowly the fingers of dawn-light
Snuff out the candles that yearned to those Gods of delirium,
Sleep-huge as shadows grimacing
From niches made black with the smoke of a fire-spangled passion.
Smoothly the wild hair of darkness
Is plaited for rest, and the faces of visions are covered with sleep veils. ”