Chapter LXXII

The dreams are over, and he addresses the sad anniversary of Hallam's death, which took place on the 15th of September, 1833--the day having just dawned with stormy accompaniments. The poplar tree[47] is blown white, through having its leaves reversed by the wind; and the window-pane streams with rain. It is a day on which his "crown'd estate," his life's happiness, began to fail; and that the rose is weighed down by rain, and the daisy closes her "crimson fringes,"[48] are effects quite in harmony with his feelings.

But, if the day had opened with no wind, and the sun had chequered the hill sides with light and shadow; it would still have looked

"As wan, as chill, as wild as now."

It is a disastrous "day, mark'd as with some hideous crime," he can therefore only say, "hide thy shame beneath the ground," in sunset, when the recalling anniversary will be past.

We are reminded of Job's imprecation on his own birthday--"Let the day perish on which I was born."