SHADOWLESS HEAT 69 



When I realised that my bacK was getting 

 really overdone I turned over and exposed in 

 turn each side, and eventually the front of my 

 body, to the sun. Then I felt overdone all 

 round. Moreover the vestige of shadow in 

 which my head cowered — that cast by the 

 sparse top of the taaibosch, through which the 

 sunlight leaked freely — grew more and more 

 scanty. Oh ! I breathed, for a return of that 

 blessed coolness of morning which my frame, 

 softened by years of a semi-sedentary life, had 

 been unable to sustain without discomfort. 

 Oh ! for the gentle, healing hand of the dew, 

 which I so ungratefully contemned. If these 

 desert plants can feel and think, how they must 

 long for the night, — for the miracle of cool 

 moisture which, perhaps, a beneficent planet 

 distils in some grove-garden of the asteroids 

 and seals up in the crystal vats of some 

 celestial tavern known only to its sister spheres 

 and the moon. 



Surely there is some hostel of mercy in 

 whose cool cellars the precious vintage lies 

 hidden from the rapacity of the cruel sun, — 

 held in readiness to be poured out from the 

 etherial beakers of the firmament on the tortured 

 tongues of the leaves and grass-blades, when 

 the tyrant of the skies departs for a season. 



