104 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



all nature seemed buried in a deep repose. But 

 there was something almost unnatural in the 

 solemn stillness of that hour. It was as the 

 silence of the grave. How well I remember Eliza 

 Cook's beautiful lines, but never till this night 

 did I feel their full force : 



" To hear our very breath intrude 

 Upon the boundless solitude, 

 Where mingled tidings never come 

 With busy feet or human hum ; 

 All hushed above, beneath, around, 

 No stirring form, no whispered sound 

 This is a loneliness that falls 

 Upon the spirit, and appals 

 More than the mingled rude alarms 

 Arising from a world of arms." 



It is in vain to endeavour to do justice to such 

 a scene by the pen ; for " the description of such 

 natural and varied grandeur can be limited only 

 by each individual's power of graphic portraiture ; 

 all, however, far below the truth, and weak to 

 the imagination of the poetic reader." In the 

 north-east, where the fells were lower, the sun 

 shone out of an unclouded sky, apparently about 

 a foot from the horizon's edge an angry, sullen, 

 lurid, globe of fire, without appearing to emit a 

 single ray of heat, for we could stare him in the 

 face without winking. He appeared to me to go 

 down about due north, and, without rising or 

 sinking, for nearly an hour to travel eastward, 



