SKY 19 



perience, look at the clouds. The sky is 

 so common a luxury that we deny it to 

 ourselves. But if your eyes are strong, lie 

 on a bank of wild thyme, or something, 

 and just stare into the zenith. It is not so 

 poetic if you have to wear blue glasses ; but 

 the light of the sun reflected from moun- 

 tains of snowy cumulus, or even the far-off 

 and filmy tissues of the cirri, nay, even the 

 light that fills the unclouded air, is more 

 piercing than you have supposed. So, if 

 your eye can endure it, sprawl on the wild 

 thyme in your yard, or in your hammock, 

 close enough in the shadow of the house to 

 be out of view of the neighbors, and watch 

 those moving mountains, more vast in bulk 

 than the Balkans, as magnificent in scenery 

 as Greenland, piled into space for miles 

 above your head watch these marble 

 domes as they are wheeled across the 

 heavens in the wind's track, sometimes 

 crumbling down in misty ribbons at a dis- 

 tance, sometimes turning black and bellow- 

 ing and belching flood and fire and terror 

 near at hand. The life of the air is a reve- 

 lation. It is as much so as the life of space 



