THE SHADOW. 2 



No matter how brief the privation is. Be it 

 only the passing of a dense cloud, how much it 

 saddens the face of Nature, in all the more airy 

 and delicate parts of her kingdoms. The polished 

 leaves and petals and the glassy waters glitter no 

 more ; the myriads that were, but the instant 

 before, winnowing the air with tiny wings, and 

 breaking the light into all the shades of the rain- 

 bow, are sporting no more. There is not a chirp 

 in the grass, not a buzz in the air, not a hum 

 over the flowers. The birds of the free air are 

 silent, as if the inspiration of the sky were away. 

 The sky-lark drops down like a stone, to the co- 

 vert of the clods; not a bird sings from those 

 sprays that erewhile were so sonorous as well as 

 so sunny ; and the only sounds that issue from 

 the grove are the wood pigeon moaning from 

 her tent of leaves, and the owl answering dis- 

 mally from the hollow tree. The chick-weeds, 

 and other little plants of delicate texture, fold 

 together their leaves, and the daisy veils its golden 

 eye, as if both were hiding their precious germs 

 from the effects of the impending gloom. 



But still those temporary absences of the sun, 

 though they have a gloomy influence upon the 

 merry sounds and the gay colours of nature, and 

 though they drive for a moment the very odours 

 into their dells and hollows, or make them stag- 

 nate among the sources that produce them, until 

 they concentrate there into rankness ; there are 

 other parts of nature that derive relief from the 

 temporary gloom. The leaves of the trees, which 

 the joint action of the light and heat had caused 

 to droop, and if continued would have worn out 

 by excessive action and withered in premature de- 



M 



