The stone is still the same stone; but its sullen surface blossoms out into bright colours.
They tell of those far-off days when the molten granite had but begun to harden, and was all aglow with the hues of fire.
Even so of late was my old heart surrounded, broken in upon by a rush of fresh girls’ souls ... and under their caressing touch it flushed with long-faded colours, the traces of burnt-out fires!
The waves have ebbed back ... but the colours are not yet dull, though a cutting wind is drying them.
May 1879.
THE DOVES
I stood on the top of a sloping hillside; before me, a gold and silver sea of shifting colour, stretched the ripe rye.
But no little wavelets ran over that sea; no stir of wind was in the stifling air; a great storm was gathering.