Keynotes (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1893. Excerpt: ... III. AN EBB TIDE On right and left with flight of light, How whirled the hills, the trees, the bowers With light-like flight, on left and right, How spun the hamlets, towns, and towers Dost quail? The moon is fair to see; Hurrah the Dead ride recklessly Beloved Dost dread the shrouded dead? Ah let the dead repose she said.' James Clarence Mangan's Anthology. It is a sunshine Sabbath morning. The sea quivers under an armour of silver scales and laps, laps with a laugh as it runs into the creek. The sails of the ships glisten whiter than any snow. The sun distils the scent from the clove carnations and the sweetbrier leaves; and coaxes the pungent resin through the cracks in the bark, until the air is heavy with a smell that would cease to be perfume, were it not filtered through the salt ooze of the incoming sea-breeze that flutters the flags on the tall white poles, and tempers the ardour of the young year's sun. The kariol bearing the specialist whose skill is of no avail in the face of a pressing call from the great God Death, has just wound round the pine wood in a whirl of dust. The dogs, unbound, lie on the back veranda with their black snouts resting on their fore paws, and they watch him depart without a growl. They have not barked for days past, nor chased the plucky badger, nor yapped impatiently as the cheeky squirrels flirted through the branches. Even beggars have come and gone without a snarling protest. But all last night they howled and bayed and cowered together as if they could see the passage of invisible guests. A peculiar stillness seems to brood over the great place. The maids are sitting in their gowns of Sunday black, with open psalm-books on their laps; they are listening and whispering with the disturbance of expectancy. The housekeeper is talking to t...