Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1851-02-12


mat piercing cry, she fanced she heard, too.
the Old echo so given back to the wild shout
py the stony heights overhead. Then, as
drowners DO, she saw, as the heavy tides roll
ed over her and pressed upon her shut lids,
green helds cleaning far away-bright lands
she might never touch. Next, the giddy waves
seemed whirling her round and round. and
lhe ehgiiiphlng waters choked her, till she
swooned va '"o
With returning consciousness the first nh.
Ject that met her eyes was the same fairv-lke
hgure al which she had been gazing when the
sea flowed over her. On looking around she
found that she was lying in small cave or
hollow OF the cliff, midway up the step. The
moor on which she was stretched was a many
colored mosaic, formed of the fan-shells from
the beach below the roof she could not see.
Tor the wings of the fairy being now bending
above her completely arcIed it over, so that
all that met her upturned gaze was one beau
lliul downy network, gimmering with opal
ike and eyer-varying rays, like those upen
the ocean loan, as she had seen t at eve wien
sunset lay along the sands
Where am | 2 was the first question of the
bewldered child
In the cave of the fairy Clifelda,' was the
answer Be at peace sweet sporter, between
the white wall and the cloud. Here shall no
struggles await no mortal sorrow oyerwhelna
you. Until you learn to pine for your natur-
al home, this shall be your dwelling; but once
lament, shed but one human tear,for the world
you have left below, to swell the salt waves
already overriding the chaky barriers stretch
ed tar and wide TO impede them, and you must
hence forever.
Wherefore? cried tie child, in still greater
amazement
i will tell YOU said Il e fairy. know then,
oh sleeper in the sea what it is that makes
yonder waves SO salt that our fairy lips turned
away from it in loathing. That salt is the
taste of human woe, the gathering of mortal
tears into one great urn oflhe Deep Hitherto.
you have played with and made pastime Ct
sorrow it has never yet struck home to your
heart. The tears otmillions have flowed over
your head this day, but your pulse throbs still
and the smile dances on your lip. Your life
.'-'0ot'i1 you snail add your first real tear
10 swell the vast heaying tide fls~t on 10.
ever and ever Then beware! 1t will M
longer be in my power, or in the power ofany
of my race, to save you. Thenceforward, yon-
der bitter waves shall have dominion over you.
Perchance it will be your fate to drink deep
of them, till your soul shall be sick with loath-
ing-aye, even of life
The fairy ceased. The child rendered.
Few moons rolled over that vast sea before
a change fell upon the child. Each moon, as
it grew broad in the heavens, laid single
golden finger on the Deep and with it pointed
TO the shore. The child could not look straight
down below because Of the dizzy height on
which she lay but she could mark The golden
finger, and she could see that it pointed to her
own beloved home. the narrow cabin at the
foot of the cliff, whose very floor she well
| knew the high spring tides were washing,
whenever that golden finger vas SO stretched
across the deep.
1t was not long before the child began to
pine for her lonely home. and as a new and
strange intelligence, before her years, dawned
upon her, she whispered softly to her own
heart, 'why am here? What have | done
that I should know tears? Beautiful was my
sisters sorrow and sweet, when she was made
to know her first great fault, and too weep over
it. Sacred was my fathers woe when he be-
held me sink beneath the deep; for then |
know he lifted up his hands, and looking on
my sister, blessed God that died in my
young days of innocence. My father was
hard man but he is gentler now: my sister
walks softly in her sorrows. Why, oh, why
am not only to know no tears Though this
floor were of gems instead of the little tide
Shells. and thought the bright wings see
waving above me were angels wings, yet
should pine for earth and its Christening sor-
rows. To the strange nature ofthis fairy crea-
ture, tears may be bitter: but OH, they are
sweet 10 usn
Thereupon the child wept. AS she dropped
her FIRST real tear to the rippled sands below.
the child felt herself falling gently downward,
so gently that it seemed as il unseen wings
were supporting her from beneath. in order
tha: she might descend the more softly.
Soon after she lay at her mothers door that
opened on the sand; eager to enter she turn
ed but one look back. There she beheld the
fairy of the cliffs lodge She thought too, that,iu
spite of her strange teaching, the fairy smiled
approvpgy upon her, and that the eyes of
Ciiffelda herself were not quite as dry as they
should have been had her practice been con-
sisient with her preaching. But perhaps fairy
tears, less bitter than mortal ones, feed only
the rvers
In her own home all beheld her in wonder
No one believed the tale she had told of Cliff.
eIda. 1t was rather supposed that the tide
had cast the child Katey, yet living, at her
mothers door still less was she listened to
when she told what it was that made the sea
waves 80 salt
Time passed, and The child Katey grew up
in tenderness and truth. IN place Of the wild
freaks of childhood, softer and more chast-
ened spirit ruled the girl as she advanced in
years. And if, in her early Womanhood, some
sorrows found her, it was ever noticed that at
such times she looked upwards, some said to
the cave on the rocks ledge, the dwelling of
the Cliff.side Fay Others thought that She