"Make room, ye happy Natives of the Sky,
Room for a Soul—all Love and Harmony;
A Soul that rose to such Perfection here,
It scarce will be advanced by being there.
* * * *
Ah, most unworthy! shou'd we leave unsung
Such wondrous Goodness in a Life so young.
In spight of Practice, he this Truth has shown,
That Harmony and Vertue shou'd be one.
So true to Nature, and so just to Wit,
His Music was the very Sense you Writ.
Nor were his Beauties to his Art confin'd;
So justly were his Soul and Body join'd,
You'd think his Form the Product of his Mind."
[WORDS TO THE WISE OR OTHERWISE.]
By "MEDICUS" (Dr. GORDON STABLES, M.D., R.N.).
The sunsets at Nairn, N.B., are often beautiful in the extreme. Last night, however, was probably an exception, for the sun gave just one yellow uncertain glare across the wind-chafed waves, then sank behind a bank of sulphureous-looking clouds. Darkness came on a whole hour before its time, and though an almost full moon was in the sky, the rolling cumulus eclipsed it. And such awful cumulus I have never seen before; so black, so beast-like in shape. To gaze up into the heavens was like catching a glimpse of some scenes in Dante's Inferno.
Then high and higher rose the wind, howling and "howthering" from off the stormy Nor' lan' sea. Although my caravan is well anchored down in the wide green meadow in which I lie, she pulled and dragged at her hawsers, and swung and rolled like a ship in the chops of the Channel. But a wild wind and a van that rocks, bring sweetest slumbers to the brain of the poor wandering gipsy, and it was well-nigh six this morning before I opened my lazy eyes.
The sea out yonder is an ocean of blue ink flecked with snow-white foam; for the storm still blows, though less fiercely. Beyond the Moray Frith sunshine and shadow are playing at hide-and-seek, and so bright are the colours of woodland and fields, their deep dark greens, their yellows and the touches of crimson on the beetling cliffs, that they bring vividly to my recollection the awful pictures I used to paint when a boy of eight or nine.
It is already well on in the fa' o' the year, and I am still 700 miles from my English home. But there is a sting in the air now, both morn and even, which sharply touches up one's kilted knees. Wonderfully bracing, however; there is health in every breeze, and I believe my girl-readers, who happen to possess anything having the slightest resemblance to a constitution, should go out for exercise in all weathers.