Chapter III

It is a holy night. The moon
Hath made it like a gentler noon,
And every deep and starry eye
Is waking in the summer sky,
As if its light were made alone
For restless hearts to gaze upon.
There are no voices, and the stir
Of the soft south goes lightlier
Among the branches, and the deep,
Felt stillness of a world asleep,
Is on my spirit like the touch
Of a sweet friend who loveth much.
I’ve left my books. I cannot damp
My heart beside a weary lamp
While heaven is set with stars, and I
Am not to sit down quietly,
And on a musty altar fling
The birthright of a glorious wing.
Reason who will; while skies of June
Are molten by this silent moon,
While flowers have breath, and voices creep
From running brook and fountain-leap,
While any thing is left to love
In this fair earth and heaven above,
I would not wear a fettered limb
To make Chaldea’s wisdom dim.

Why, what is duty? Sky and sea,
Thou promised heaven! are types of thee;
The earth is like a flowing cup
Of perfect beauty mingled up;
The very elements of heaven,
Life, light, and music, freely given;
The world an Eden, and we thirst
For every voice and fountain-burst;
And yet, we’re told, at duty’s call
We must forego--forget them all!

How has the foot of nature trod
The pathway of a perfect God,
How are the springs of earnest thought
With his diviner cunning wrought,
If all that makes us feel our fate
Not altogether desolate--
This burning love for beautiful things,
Is sealed among forbidden springs,
And we must throw a gift of fire
Aside like a neglected lyre?

BETTER MOMENTS.

My mother’s voice! how often creeps
Its cadence on my lonely hours,
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers!

I can forget her melting prayer
While leaping pulses madly fly;
But in the still unbroken air,
Her gentle tone comes stealing by,
And years, and sin, and manhood flee,
And leave me at my mother’s knee.

The book of nature, and the print
Of beauty on the whispering sea,
Give aye to me some lineament
Of what I have been taught to be.
My heart is harder, and perhaps
My manliness hath drunk up tears,
And there’s a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years--
But nature’s book is even yet
With all my mother’s lessons writ.

I have been out at eventide
Beneath a moonlight sky of spring,
When earth was garnished like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing;
When bursting leaves and diamond grass,
And waters leaping to the light,
And all that makes the pulses pass
With wilder fleetness, thronged the night--
When all was beauty--then have I,
With friends on whom my love is flung
Like myrrh on winds of Araby,
Gazed up where evening’s lamp is hung,
And when the beautiful spirit there
Flung over me its golden chain,
My mother’s voice came on the air
Like the light dropping of the rain,
And resting on some silver star
The spirit of a bended knee,
I’ve poured her low and fervent prayer
That our eternity might be
To rise in heaven like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light!

I have been on the dewy hills
When night was stealing from the dawn,
And mist was on the waking rills,
And tints were delicately drawn
In the gray east; when birds were waking
With a low murmur in the trees,
And melody by fits was breaking
Upon the whisper of the breeze--
And this when I was forth, perchance,
As a worn reveller from the dance!
And when the sun sprang gloriously
And freely up, and hill and river
Were catching upon wave and tree
The arrows from his subtle quiver--
I say a voice has thrilled me then,
Heard on the still and rushing light,
Or creeping from the silent glen,
Like words from the departing night--
Hath stricken me, and I have pressed
On the wet grass my fevered brow,
And pouring forth the earliest,
First prayer with which I learned to bow,
Have felt my mother’s spirit rush
Upon me as in by-past years,
And yielding to the blessed gush
Of my ungovernable tears,
Have risen up--the gay, the wild--
As humble as a very child!

THE HINDOO MOTHER.

It was a gentle eve in Hindoostan.
The rains were past, and the delighted earth
Was beautiful once more, and glittering leaves
Were lifting lightly on their beaten stems,
And glancing to the pure, transparent sky,
Like a pleased infant smiling through its tears.
Clouds lingered in the west, and tints were drawn
By sunset fingers on their skirts of gold,
And they were floating as serenely there,
As if the children of the restless storm
Could sleep upon the azure floor of heaven.

Deep ran the holy Ganges, for the rain
Had swollen it from Thibet to the sea.
Its flow was turbid; and, as if the winds
Were not forgotten by the multitude
Of its strange waters, they were leaping up,
And with a wonderous glory gathering
The mantle of the sunset over them.
How frequently these living passages
Of nature’s book are opened, and how few
Are the high hearts that know them, and can feel
Their eloquence and beauty!

Meina stood
Upon the breathing carpet of the shore,
Gazing on sky and river. There was much
In the dark features of the young Hindoo,
That should have won a gentler history.
She had the Eastern eye, with its dark fringe
And shadowy depth of lustre; but, beyond
The elements of beauty, there was writ
A something that the wounded roe would trust
For shelter from its hunters. Her closed lips
Were delicate as the tinted pencilling
Of veins upon a flower; and on her cheek
The timid blood had faintly melted through,
Like something that was half afraid of light.
There was no slighter print upon the grass
Than her elastic step; and in her frame
There was a perfect symmetry, that seemed
Aerial as a bird’s. It was the hour
For worship in her land; and she had come,
With the religion of a high, pure heart,
To bow herself in prayer. A darker mind
Might pray at such an hour; but she had caught
The spirit of the scene; and, as her eye
Followed the coursing of the golden waves,
Or rested on the clouds that slept above,
Like isles upon the bosom of the sea,
Her soul was swept to music like a harp,
And she knelt down in her deep blessedness
To worship the High Maker. As she prayed,
Her beautiful young boy--a very dream,
As he might be, of infant loveliness,
With his dark hair upon the summer wind,
And the sweet laugh of a delighted child
Like music on his lips--came leaping by,
And, flinging a light wreath upon her brow,
Sprang onward like a bounding antelope.
She turned a moment--might she not, for him?
Him, whom she cradled in the whispering tree,
And gathered to her bosom in the hush
Of the still night?--to know if he was there.
Twas but a moment, and she bowed again;
And, as the murmur of her silver tone
Stole out upon the wind, her images
Of majesty came back, and she was filled,
Like a deep channel by the whirlwind swept,
Again with the rich rushing of her prayer.
The shadows of the stealthy evening came
Silently on; but she was up, in thought,
Among the crystal palaces of light;
And a still prompting came to her, to pray
That the poor spirit of a passing world,
With all its fond, but frail idolatries,
Might on the altar of her God be flung.
She breathed it, and along the holy shore
She heard the whisper of the waters creep:
‘Thine is the victory, Meina!’--Was it won?
Won in its cold, bereaving cruelty?
Won from the pride of woman? from her love?
Won from thy boy! young mother? No! oh, no!
She had forgotten him! He was too young,
Too purely, beautifully young, to die!
And then the waves repeated to the shore,
And the light echo heard it: ‘Give him up!’
And Meina heard it: ‘Give him to thy God!’
And the strong heart arose! One arrowy pulse
Of an acuter agony than death;
One fearful shiver at the searching thrill,
And she had won--aye, with her glorious boy
Upon her very breast--the victory!
Oh! let the erring oftener be forgiven,
That, in the shadowy twilight of the mind,
They stray a little from the perfect way!
If there is evidence in silent leaves,
And the still waters, of a present God,
And all who hear not messages of grace,
Must gather from its dim and hidden words
Their better solaces; remember ye
Who reckon lightly of the poor Hindoo,
That, in the scattering of the leaves of life,
His page was written more imperfectly.

The beautiful sun arose, and there was not
A stain upon the sky; the virgin blue
Was delicate as light; and, as the east
Eclipsed night’s pale and starry jewelry,
The pure intensity of noon stole on,
Like the soft deepening of a northern eye.

‘Come! my own glorious boy!’ and forth he sprang,
As he had been created of the morn
A spirit and an element of light.
‘Come! Come!’ and he was bounding airily
Beside his stately mother, laughing out
His lisping prattle of the promised boat,
As if her words had been in playfulness,
‘That the bright waves should float him on to heaven.’
The morning mist stole up, as Meina knelt
To offer him to God. Her eyes were dim;
But her fine forehead, and her calm, still lip,
Were fearfully subdued; and as the cloud
Which clothes the lightning slumbers, so they slept.
Her soul was in its strength. She held her boy
Upon her bosom, till she felt the throb
Of his warm pulses numbered on her heart,
And her low, leaden cadences, kept on!
His silken hair, as delicately soft
As the light wind that stirred it, floated up,
As if to plead at her transparent cheek;
But she had wooed its kisses till it came
To be a fond idolatry, and now
She nerved her as the strong heart answered it.
And the low words broke severally on,
Distinctly as a common orison!
There is a period in the wreck of hopes
By the affections garnered, calmer far
Than an untried serenity. It comes
With the stern conflict ever, and awaits
The passage of that hour, as if the soul
Were girded, and had championed suffering;
And it is strange, how a weak human heart
Will thus be quiet like a hushing storm,
And, with a fetter on its pulses, wait
To measure spirits for the mastery!

The low ‘Amen!’ died on the silent air,
And Meina’s heart was ready. The young boy
Sprang joyously away, as if her arms
Had prisoned him too long; and, as he saw
The painted boat heave lightly to the swell
Upon the reedy shore, and caught the breath
Of her wreathed helm of flowers, he gave a shout,
In his impatient gladness, and away,
Like a warm vision of aerial birth,
He bounded to implore that she would come.
Calmly and steadily came Meina on,
Led by her victim boy. The boat was there
Among the tall wet reeds, and she went in
And scanned its light frame over, and arranged
Its mimic ornaments; and then again,
When she had seen it all, and he had grown
Impatient, she began to note once more
The frailties in its lightly plaited reeds,
As if she did not know that it was meant
To kill. It is a wonderful effect
Of nature in the heart, that in the strength
Of a mistaken duty, it will turn,
And almost trifle with its tenderness,
As if it half misgave that all was wrong.

‘Come!’ and he sprang into his mother’s arms
With a light leap, and, scarcely faltering
In his gay laugh, he looked into her face,
And in a tone of fondness whispered her,
‘Will the boat bear, dear mother?’ She had quelled
Her feelings until now; had nerved herself
To the light grace with which he bounded by;
Had heard his voice, and looked upon his hair
In its light, breezy floatings, and had shut
Her heart up, with an iron thought, to all.
But this one doubt, half sadness as it came
From his delighted lips, and with his look
Of childlike and appealing confidence,
Was keener than a mother’s heart could bear!
She bowed her head, and struggled, as if life
Were bursting from its seal; and, as the thought
Rushed over her to take her idol back,
And keep him for her God, he murmured low,
‘And are you sure, my mother?’--‘No! my son!’
And the strong tide of nature gathered back
With a resistless energy. She clasped
Her boy convulsively, and he had lived
To quicken, in its gifted elements,
The radiant spirit written on his brow,
But a high strengthening she knew not of,
Awakened her, and pressing down her lips
In a long fervent kiss upon his cheek,
She hushed him into peace, and lifting up
Her face to heaven, she breathed the name of God,
And laid him down--for ever!

The light bark
Went smoothly with the tide, and floated on
Till his dark eye was scarcely visible.
On, and yet on, she bounded! The bright waves
Seemed playful in their leaping joyousness,
And the curled ripple feathered at the prow
Like a glad thing of life. Had death grown slow?
Or were the waters ‘stayed,’ that they should keep
Their cold embraces from him? On, still on,
With her quick undulations! Hope revived
In the sick heart of Meina, and she rose
To gaze more keenly forward. He was there,
And his small arms were lifted; and she thought
That, as he tossed them upward, she could hear
A cadence of his sweet and silvery voice
Like a delighted shouting. It died off,
And then again she heard it. Was it joy
That broke upon her ear? oh! was there joy
In that long cry, thou mother? Hark to it!
’Tis like the arrowy piercing of the wind!
He moveth, and she bade him to be still!
He riseth! ’tis his boyish restlessness!
Look, Meina! Does he dash his little hands,
In mirth, upon the waters? Hark! once more!
‘Mother!’ He calls thee! Is thy child afraid?
Again! How very fearfully it comes!
‘Help! Mother!’ ’Tis a cry of agony!
He sinks! Fly! Fly! he calls to thee! Oh fly!
‘Mother!’ God help thee! Dost thou see him now?

WAITING FOR THE HARVESTERS.

And there she sat in ripened loveliness,
An English mother; joying in her babes,
Whose life was bright before her, and whose lips
Were breaking into language, with the sweet
And loving sentences they learn so soon.
Her face was very beautiful, and mirth
Was native on her lip; but ever now
As a sweet tone delighted her, the smile
Went melting into sadness, and the lash
Drooped gently to her eye, as if it knew
Affection was too chaste a thing for mirth.
It was the time for harvest, and she sat
Awaiting one. A breath of scented hay
Was in the air, and from the distance came
The noise of sickles, and the voices sent
Out on the stillness of the quiet morn;
And the low waters, coming like the strain
Of a pervading melody, stole in,
And made all music! ’Twas a holiness
Of nature’s making, and I lifted up
My heart to Heaven, and in my gladness prayed
That if a heart were sad, or if a tear
Were living upon earth, it might be theirs
To go abroad in nature, and to see
A mother and her gentle babes like these.

FUGITIVE PIECES.

THE SOLDIER’S WIDOW.

Wo! for my vine-clad home!
That it should ever be so dark to me,
With its bright threshold, and its whispering tree!
That I should ever come,
Fearing the lonely echo of a tread,
Beneath the roof-tree of my glorious dead!

Lead on! my orphan boy!
Thy home is not so desolate to thee,
And the low shiver in the linden tree
May bring to thee a joy;
But, oh! how dark is the bright home before thee,
To her who with a joyous spirit bore thee!

Lead on! for thou art now
My sole remaining helper. God hath spoken,
And the strong heart I leaned upon is broken;
And I have seen his brow,
The forehead of my upright one, and just,
Trod by the hoof of battle to the dust.

He will not meet thee there
Who blest thee at the eventide, my son!
And when the shadows of the night steal on,
He will not call to prayer.
The lips that melted, giving thee to God,
Are in the icy keeping of the sod!

Aye, my own boy! thy sire
Is with the sleepers of the valley cast,
And the proud glory of my life hath past,
With his high glance of fire.
Wo! that the linden and the vine should bloom,
And a just man be gathered to the tomb!

Why, bear them proudly, boy!
It is the sword he girded to his thigh,
It is the helm he wore in victory!
And shall we have no joy?
For thy green vales, O Switzerland, he died!
I will forget my sorrow--in my pride!

THE BURIAL OF ARNOLD,

MEMBER OF THE SENIOR CLASS OF YALE COLLEGE.

Ye’ve gathered to your place of prayer
With slow and measured tread;
Your ranks are full, your mates all there;
But the soul of one has fled.
He was the proudest in his strength,
The manliest of ye all;
Why lies he at that fearful length,
And ye around his pall?

Ye reckon it in days since he
Strode up that foot-worn aisle,
With his dark eye flashing vividly,
And his lip wreathed with a smile.
Oh! had it been but told you then
To mark whose lamp was dim,
From out yon rank of fresh-lipped men,
Would ye have singled him?

Whose was the sinewy arm which flung
Defiance to the ring?
Whose laugh of victory loudest rung,
Yet not for glorying?
Whose heart, in generous deed and thought,
No rivalry might brook,
And yet distinction claiming not?
There lies he; go and look!

On now! his requiem is done;
The last deep prayer is said.
On to his burial, comrades! on,
With the noblest of the dead!
Slow! for it presses heavily;
It is a man ye bear!
Slow! for our thoughts dwell wearily
On the noble sleeper there.

Tread lightly, comrades! we have laid
His dark locks on his brow
Like life, save deeper light and shade;
We’ll not disturb them now.
Tread lightly; for ’tis beautiful,
That blue-veined eyelid’s sleep,
Hiding the eye death left so dull;
Its slumber we will keep.

Rest now! his journeying is done;
Your feet are on his sod.
Death’s chain is on your champion;
Here waiteth he his God!
Aye, turn and weep! ’tis manliness
To be heart-broken here;
For the grave of earth’s best nobleness
Is watered by the tear.

TO LAURA W----,

TWO YEARS OF AGE.

Bright be the skies that cover thee,
Child of the sunny brow!
Bright as the dream flung over thee,
By all that meets thee now.
Thy heart is beating joyously,
Thy voice is like a bird’s,
And sweetly breaks the melody
Of thy imperfect words.
I know no fount that gushes out,
As gladly as thy tiny shout.

Thy coral lip is pencilled well,
Thy cheek is deeply dyed;
Thine eye might shame the fleet gazelle,
In all his desert pride;
Thy fairy foot’s uncertain step,
Thy light bewitching grace,
The smile that curls thy sleeping lip,
And lights thy radiant face;
Have made a gift of beauty up
Too fair to taste life’s tainted cup.

I would that thou mightst ever be
As beautiful as now;
That time might ever leave us free
Thy yet unwritten brow!
I would life were all poetry
To gentle measures set,
That nought but chastened melody,
Might dim thine eye of jet,
Nor one discordant note be spoken,
Till God the cunning harp hath broken.

I would--but deeper things than these
With woman’s lot are wove;
Wrought of intenser sympathies,
And nerved by purer love.
By the strong spirit’s discipline,
By the fierce wrong forgiven,
By all that wrings the heart of sin,
Is woman won to heaven.
‘Her lot is on thee,’ lovely child!
God keep thy spirit undefiled!

I fear thy gentle loveliness,
Thy witching tone and air,
Thine eye’s beseeching earnestness,
May be to thee a snare.
For silver stars may purely shine,
The waters taintless flow;
But they who kneel at woman’s shrine,
Breathe on it as they bow.
Ye may fling back the gift again,
But the crushed flower will leave a stain.

What shall preserve thee, beautiful child!
Keep thee, as thou art now?
Bring thee, a spirit undefiled,
At God’s pure throne to bow?
The world is but a broken reed,
And life grows early dim--
Who shall be near thee in thy need,
To lead thee up, to Him?
He who himself was ‘undefiled’--
With Him we trust thee, beautiful child!

SONNET.

TO A PICTURE OF ‘GENEVIEVE,’ BY ALEXANDER.

Thine is a face to look upon and pray
That a pure spirit keep thee. I would meet
With one so gentle by the streams away,
Living with nature; keeping thy pure feet
For the unfingered moss, and for the grass
Which leaneth where the gentle waters pass.
The autumn leaves should sigh thee to thy sleep,
And the capricious April, coming on,
Awake thee like a flower, and stars should keep
A vigil o’er thee like Endymion;
And thou for very gentleness shouldst weep,
As dew of the night’s quietness comes down.
I’ve praised thee, Genevieve! A dream of mine
Hath just such dark and shaded eyes as thine.

SONNET.

I have been gazing on thee, Genevieve,
And musing, in my love, if thou must die;
And I have thought it were not well to grieve
At thy most delicate frame and lustrous eye;
For as a harp is broken, when the finger
That knew its cunning hath forgot to play,
Thou wouldst not, for that frail confinement, linger,
When it was time for thee to pass away;
And therefore am I glad, that when my heart
To thy enquiring tenderness is hushed,
And thine endearments from mine eyes depart,
’Twill be enough for thee that life hath gushed,
Gently to loose the silver cord, and die,
And with me in my place of slumber lie.

SONNET.

I care not that the world, when I am dead,
Remember me; I care not that they come
To see the place where I shall lay my head,
Or praise me with low voices at my tomb;
I would not even a recording stone
Should tell them what I was--when I am gone.
There are a few who love me--whom I love--
Gentle and gifted spirits, who would weep,
But not that I had found a rest above,
And in their hearts my trifling virtues keep;
And one, whom I have folded like a dove
In my affections, would lie down and sleep
Softly beside me--and I should not care,
That any one should know that I was there.

EXTRACT FROM A POEM

DELIVERED AT THE DEPARTURE OF THE SENIOR CLASS OF YALE COLLEGE, IN 1826.

* * * * *

We shall go forth together. There will come
Alike the day of trial unto all,
And the rude world will buffet us alike.
Temptation hath a music for all ears;
And mad ambition trumpeteth to all;
And the ungovernable thought within,
Will be in every bosom eloquent;
But when the silence and the calm come on,
And the high seal of character is set,
We shall not all be similar. The scale
Of being is a graduated thing;
And deeper than the vanities of power,
Or the vain pomp of glory, there is writ
Gradation, in its hidden characters.
The pathway to the grave may be the same,
And the proud man shall tread it, and the low,
With his bowed head, shall bear him company.
Decay will make no difference, and death
With his cold hand shall make no difference;
And there will be no precedence of power,
In waking at the coming trump of God;
But in the temper of the invisible mind,
The godlike and undying intellect,
There are distinctions that will live in heaven,
When time is a forgotten circumstance!
The elevated brow of kings will lose
The impress of regalia, and the slave
Will wear his immortality as free,
Beside the chrystal waters; but the depth
Of glory in the attributes of God,
Will measure the capacities of mind;
And as the angels differ, will the ken
Of gifted spirits glorify him more.
It is life’s mystery. The soul of man
Createth its own destiny of power;
And as the trial is intenser here,
His being hath a nobler strength in heaven.

What is its earthly victory? Press on!
For it hath tempted angels. Yet press on!
For it shall make you mighty among men;
And from the eyrie of your eagle thought,
Ye shall look down on monarchs. Oh! press on!
For the high ones and powerful shall come
To do you reverence; and the beautiful
Will know the purer language of your brow,
And read it like a talisman of love!
Press on! for it is godlike to unloose
The spirit, and forget yourself in thought;
Bending a pinion for the deeper sky,
And in the very fetters of your flesh,
Mating with the pure essences of heaven!
Press on!--‘for in the grave there is no work,
And no device.’--Press on! while yet ye may!

So lives the soul of man. It is the thirst
Of his immortal nature; and he rends
The rock for secret fountains, and pursues
The path of the illimitable wind
For mysteries--and this is human pride!
There is a gentler element, and man
May breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul,
And drink its living waters till his heart
Is pure--and this is human happiness!
Its secret and its evidence are writ
In the broad book of nature. ’Tis to have
Attentive and believing faculties;
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well created things;
To love the voice of waters, and the sheen
Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;
To thrill with the rich melody of birds,
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm;
To see a beauty in the stirring leaf,
And find calm thoughts beneath the whispering tree;
To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence
Of God’s deep wisdom in the natural world!
It is to linger on ‘the magic face
Of human beauty,’ and from light and shade
Alike to draw a lesson; ’tis to love
The cadences of voices that are tuned
By majesty and purity of thought;
To gaze on woman’s beauty, as a star
Whose purity and distance make it fair;
And in the gush of music to be still,
And feel that it has purified the heart!
It is to love all virtue for itself,
All nature for its breathing evidence;
And when the eye hath seen, and when the ear
Hath drunk the beautiful harmony of the world,
It is to humble the imperfect mind,
And lean the broken spirit upon God!

Thus would I, at this parting hour, be true
To the great moral of a passing world.
Thus would I--like a just departing child,
Who lingers on the threshold of his home--
Remember the best lesson of the lips
Whose accents shall be with us now, no more!
It is the gift of sorrow to be pure;
And I would press the lesson; that when life
Hath half become a weariness, and hope
Thirsts for serener waters, go abroad
Upon the paths of nature, and when all
Its voices whisper, and its silent things
Are breathing the deep beauty of the world,
Kneel at its simple altar, and the God
Who hath the living waters, shall be there!

* * * * *

NOTES.

PAGE 32, LINES 12 and 13.

_‘And a soft landscape given me by one_
_Who has a noble nature.’_

The gentleman who gave me the picture of ‘Stirling Castle’ will not be surprised that so pleasant a gift holds a place in my memory.

PAGE 33, LINES 9 and 10.

_‘one_
_Whose ancestors had been Castilia’s kings.’_

This striking anecdote is related of Ponce de Leon, in, I think, ‘A Visit to Spain,’ by Michael Quin.

PAGE 47, LINE 12.

_‘The glitter of the steeples on the hills.’_

Every one who has made the passage of the St Lawrence, will remember the beautiful effect of the steeples on the shore. Occupying almost every swell on the low interval, and tiled universally with tin, they glisten in the moonlight like turrets of silver. It is even in that majestic scenery an impressive and delightful feature.

PAGE 84, LINE 4.

_‘Child of the sunny brow.’_

Perhaps my book will be forgotten before the child, to whom these lines are addressed, is old enough to understand them; but even if it is not, there is little harm in saying that she is at this time the most beautiful human being I ever saw. Her ‘thousand winning ways’ and graceful motion are before me now like a sweet dream, and I shall never forget them. May God bless her!

PAGE 87, LINE 14.

_‘As dew of the night’s quietness comes down.’_

If my readers have neglected meteorology as long as I did, the younger part of them at least, would like to be told that the dew never falls except on a still night.

Transcriber’s Notes

A number of typographical errors have been corrected silently.

Cover image was created by the transcriber and is in the public domain.