Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/331

. 15, 1860.] When Alan blew his warning horn, My chestnut join’d her bay; Down the long grassy “rides” we rode, And watch’d the rabbits play. The dead sun in his crimson shroud Lay buried in the west, And Love was nestling in my heart, An inmate, not a guest.

A gipsy party gaily plann’d, A smile, a soft “good night,” And then I left the low white house, Just as the stars were bright:— Lost in some far, forgotten sea, The sailor on the shore Sights, to his joy, the ship that comes To bear him home once more.

The bride moon with her dower of stars Twice grew to matron age, Before my birdie flew away Back to her northern cage; She knew the abbey pictures well, She dared the haunted room, We laughed around the Oak again, And saw the aloe bloom.

A promise in the oriel won To crown my growing bliss, A drooping head, a circled waist, And such a binding kiss! O, happy time! O, happy time! It never has its fellow,— The one green leaf that hangs among So many sere and yellow.

Before the Autumn spent his wrath Upon the Rectory vine, I claim’d the promise that she made, I went and whisper’d, “mine:” May’s father trembled as he said, “Take her, a trusting wife, And cherish one whose love has thrown A glory round my life.”

Some days beside a lonely mere, (Lured by the waterfall), And then we settled at the Grange, For Alan took the Hall: How swift the lustres pass’d along, Sweet heart, with love and you, For if the sky was sometimes dark, There came a break of blue.

And ever, as the year winds round, And brings the longest day, We gather at the Forest Oak, Where first I met my May; Look, Alan’s boy and our maybud Are coming down the “ride,” Perhaps before another June There ’ll be another bride.

many evenings ago, some half-dozen pairs of bright eyes were peeping by turns through our microscope. Dainty fingers were pressed into obstinate left eyes which would not keep shut, and pretty mouths were twisted into agonising contortions in the effort to see all that could be seen. “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” together with all the usual feminine expressions of admiration, had been frequent and emphatic, when, upon putting the last three slides of our series (purposely reserved as a final bonne bouche) upon the stage of the instrument, the common delight culminated in a general exclamation of, “Oh, how sweetly pretty! The loveliest little shells!” Each refractory left optic was punished again and again in repeated examinations of the objects, and on all hands we were assailed by the questions: “What are they? and where do they come from?”

Now, although we all know it is often easier to ask than to answer a simple question, it does seem somewhat strange that we should make a long pause before replying, or that we should feel much difficulty in telling all about so very small a matter. Three slips of glass, three inches long and an inch broad, with as much fine white dust in the centre of each as would cover a threepenny-piece, do not look like a very trying subject to be examined upon: each slip, too, is labelled with the name of the object it carries, as well as a note of the locality from which it was procured; but these do not help us much; the names are long and unintelligible to uninitiated ears. Perhaps if we give them here, the reader will understand our embarrassment; he will at least see what hopeless things they would be to offer as an explanation to a lady’s untechnical but inquiring innocence; nay, possibly, if we have been fortunate enough to raise his curiosity, he may not himself be disinclined to listen, perhaps, in company with our fair friends, while we attempt an answer to the questions, What they are? and whence do they come? The labels read respectively as follows: 1. “Foraminiferæ—Atlantic soundings.” 2. “Polycystinæ—Atlantic soundings.” 3. “Diatomaceæ—Atlantic soundings.”

These are long words, as we said, and convey to most minds nothing very clearly, except a notion that the fine white dust has come in some way from the Atlantic. And so in truth it has. The three hard names represent the chief products of the sea-floor of that great ocean; and the tiny slides before us contain the remains of plants and animals brought up by the sounding-line from their dark home, some two miles beneath the surface of blue water. Let us see if these strangers from a far-off unknown region can be made to tell us something, as they lie beneath our microscope, of themselves and the mysterious hidden realm from which they come. We may suppose such atomies can scarcely tell us much, yet the vaguest story of their lives and destinies cannot but interest us. From the earliest times there has always existed some strong charm in the unknown recesses of the watery world. Ever since the old Hellenic poets saw

the imagination of man has delighted to people the clear river or the restless sea with fair semi-human forms. The old-world dreams of Siren, Triton, and Naiad are perpetuated in the later legends of Undine and the Lurleyberg; and our own great master-poet has perhaps drawn no more lovely figure than his “virgin daughter of