The Louisiana cotton-boll. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], Attakapas, La.) 1872-1883, 1878-05-23

bONdLu yOuI AlonS VIC "hANih5 tSJ
till they couch in quiet masses, iridescen
with the morning light, upon the broac
breasts of the higher hills, whose league
8 of massy undulation will melt back ant
back into that robe of material light
a until they fade away, lost in its luster
to appear again II the serene
! heaven like a wild, bright, i'm
possible dream, foundationless and
!, inaccessible, their very bases vanish.
ing in the unsubstantial and knocking
blue of the lake below. Wait yet q little
longer, and you shall see those mists
gather themselves into white towers, and
stand like fortresses along the prom0nto~
Ties, massey and m]Otionless, only piled
with every instant higher and higher into
the sky, and casting longer shadows
athwart the rocks, and out of the pale
blue of the horizon you will see forming
and advancing a troop of narrow, dark,
pointed vapors, which viii cover~the sky
inch by inch with their gray network,
and take the light off the landscape with
an eclipse which will stop the singing 81
the birds and the motion Of the leaves
together and then you will see horir
zontal bars of black shadow forming
under them, and lurid wleaths create
themselves, you know not how, along
-
the shoulders of the hills; you never
seem to see them form, but when you
look back to q place which was clear an
instant ago, there is a cloud or it, hang
ing by the precipices, as a hawk pauses
over his prey. And then you will hear
the sudden rush Of the awakened wind,
and you will see those wstch-towers of
vapor swept away from their founds-
tions, and waving curtains of Opaque
rain let down to the valleys swinging
from the burdened clouds IN black bend
ing fringes. or. pacing in plain columns
along the lake level, grazing its surface in.
to foam as they go. And then, as the sun
sinks, you shall see the storm drift for an
instant from of the hills, leaving their
broad sides smoking, and loaded yet
with snow white, torn, stcam>llke rags of
capricious vapor, now gone, now gathered
again; while he ~smould4ring sun, SEEM
ing not far away, but burning like a red
hot ball beside you, and as if you could
reach it, plunges through the rushing
wind and rolling cloud with headlong
fall as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing
all the air about it with blood. And
then you shall hear the fainting tempest
die in the hollow of the night, and you
shall see a green halo kindllDg on the
summit OF the eastern hills, brighter
brighter yet, still the large white circle
Of the slow moon is lifted up among the
barred clouds, step by step, line by line
star after star, she quenches with her
kindling light, setting in their stead an
army Of pale, penetrable, feecy wreaths
IN the heavens to give light upon the
which love together, hand in
company by company, troop by
troop, so measured in their unity of
Motion that the whole heaven seems to
with them and the earth to reel
under them, And then wait yet for one
hour, until the east again becomes purple,
dthe heaving mountains rolling against
t in darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are
irowned one by n in the glory Of its
burning; watch the white glaciers blaze
n their winding paths about the noun I
like mighty serpents with scales of 8
ire; watch the columnar peaks of soli- 9
airy snow, kindling downward, chasm by q
:hasm, each in itself a new morning, their a
ong ~avalanches cast down in the green L
brighter than the lightning, '
each its tribute of driven snow, 9
Ike altar>smoke, up to the heaven; the |
ose light of their silent domes flushing l
bat heaven about them and above them, 0
with purer light through its )
'urPIe lines of lifted cloud, casting anew a
Tory on every wreath as it passes by O
.ntil the whole heaven, one scarlet o
is interviewer with a roof of G.
flame, and tossing vault beyond v
ault. as with the drifted wing of many IL
ompanies of angels; and then, when n
gu are bowed down with fear and love "
{ the Maker and Doer of this, tell me u
no has best delivered his message unto 0
il