And so we come upon
THE GLORY OF THE CLOSING DAY
The golden light stealing out from under the clouds
sends a long streamer of fire down the s e a ; fills with
lightning a diadem of cloud that sits upon the brows,
of the Mew Stone, and swiftly turns that island, purple
a moment earlier, into such a haze of supernatural flame
as the eye cannot dare to look upon. It is flame cut in
flame, and no more an island.
In a little while the pageant is over. The great
world swings up like, a porpoise in the sea ; the sun’s,
last arc of fire is swallowed in the void, and the Mew
Stone, in the instant of its passing,, becomes the darkest:
purple under the firmament. For a roseate haze still
lies, upon the edge of the sea, and the clouds in a great
circle catch up and reflect the fragments of prismatic:
colour into which the pure sunlight is now broken. The
sky becomes a palette, the . sea a pool of pink. And as
the grey closes in, the patch last touched by the sun
grows, iridescent as a pearl, in waves upon waves of
blending colour.
Beautiful as is the day, there is a subtle and deeper
fascination in the dark.
The world closes in, and leaves me the centre of a
new universe. I seem by some miracle to have been
brought here into the midst o f these lonely islands,
and the panting, dauntless engine that has brought me
seems like another carpet of Solomon magically put at
my service. For, a month or two ago, I was afoot in
5 2 6
± rom a- pamUng by J. E. Middleton.
A GIRL PAINTING H ER EYEBROWS.
p . 526.