CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



wings how apt for flight from clime to clime! joy- 

 ously they beat the liquid radiance, till to the loud 

 flapping high rises the mist, and wide spreads the 

 foam, almost sufficient for a rainbow. Safe are they 

 from all birds of prey. The Osprey dashes down on 

 the teal, or sea-trout, swimming within or below their 

 shadow. The great Erne, or Sea-eagle, pounces on 

 the mallard, as he mounts from the bulrushes before 

 the wild swans sailing, with all wings hoisted, like a 

 fleet but osprey nor eagle dares to try his talons on 

 that stately bird for he is bold in his beauty, and 

 formidable as he is fair; the pinions that swim and 

 soar can also smite; and though the one be a lover of 

 war, the other of peace, yet of them it may be said, 



"The eagle he is lord above ', 

 The swan is lord below!" 



To have shot such a creature so large so white 

 so high-soaring and on the winds of midnight 

 wafted from so far a creature that seemed not 

 merely a stranger in that loch, but belonging to some 

 mysterious land in another hemisphere, whose coast 

 ships with frozen rigging have been known to visit, 

 driving under bare poles through a month's snow 

 storms to have shot such a creature was an era in 

 our imagination, from which, had nature been more 

 prodigal, we might have sprung up a poet. Once, and 

 [88] 



