32 MY DEVON YEAR 



months, when he sheathes his sword and often takes 

 his Western brother's hand. 



But the scythe-bearer no man loves, and I think, 

 save Charles Kingsley, none has paid him a com- 

 pliment in print. Even that is to say too much, for 

 it was not to the true East wind that the genial 

 genius of Kingsley turned a rhyme, but to his cousin 

 once removed. 



"Welcome, wild North-easter ! 



Shame it is to see 

 Odes to every zephyr ; 

 Ne'er a verse to thee." 



Here, then, within sight of his highway along 

 bending boughs, I speak the East wind's praise, and 

 declare we much misprize him. In early March upon 

 high ground a picture woven by him spread before me, 

 and his magic mists hung low on every side, so that 

 the horizon was draped in an opaline haze, and only 

 the middle-distance and foreground stood starkly out. 

 Those mists were of most delicate hues; they extended 

 low and were more thickly spread along the East 

 than elsewhere. At the zenith clouds like feathers 

 flew singly in a pale blue sky. There was a sting 

 in the air, and all the face of hill and valley and open 

 water smarted visibly, cowered, and shrank. The 

 very lichen on the stone seemed to curl at its edge 

 and shudder. The woods ached and cried their pain 

 in dry wailing ; the heath tinkled from every dead 

 bell ; a lake of water lying beneath me showed 

 its teeth where the wind flicked it into ripples, and it 



