Evening red and morning grey,
Send the traveller on his way;
But evening grey and morning red,
Send the traveller wet to bed.
There is a verse full of ripe experience. The evening sun glows red through the lozenge-panes and into the cottage, lights up with sparks of crimson fire the silver lustre ornaments, makes the furniture shine again, gives the brass candlesticks a finger lick of fire, shines ruddy on the tablecloth, and flashes back a friendly scarlet message from the square of looking-glass. On the deep window ledge stand a row of ruddled flower pots in which fine geraniums grow, behind them a tidy muslin curtain stretches across the window on a tape, on the sides of the window are hung a photograph or two, an almanac, and a picture cut from a seed catalogue, above hangs a canary in a small cage. Only the narrowest slip of window is clear, not more than one clear pane, and it is through this that the evening sun streams into the cottage room. In the morning when our friend rises, if he finds the room flooded with a clear grey light, a light matching the silver lustre jugs, then he quotes his verse, to be sure, and passing his neighbour says, “A fine day, to-day.”
2
A rainbow in the morning
Is the shepherd’s warning
But a rainbow at night
Is the shepherd’s delight.