The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1890-06-27

solemn inscription,-REYNANDO EN
ESPANA 49,. The REY is gone for
ever syllable and potentate
Underneath the pendant Lanb,-now
black,-there arc dark stains of drip
pings,-as of blood streaming over the
stone. Nothing could be more gro
tcsqucly realistic than the sculptured
helplessness of that Lamb yet We
may well doubt If he who chiseIed il
was moved by any spirit Of sardoniC
symbolism,-any memory of those Ar.
gonauts of the sixteenth century, who
found new Colchis in the West, and
a new Fleece, whereof the shearina
yielded in less than one generation
three hundred tons of gold.
Now the moat is haunted by lizards
and lovers only; and there are buz.
yards upon the sentry towers; and
there are bats in the barbican lit is
just sixty-fve years since the last
Spanish trooper trampcd out of the
sally-port, never to come back. But
squamated as the structure is, the dig
nity oft imposes awe,-the antiquatcd
vastncss of it compels respect for the
vanished grandeur of Spain the ma
jesty of It's desolation is unspeakable.
.... i think one feels it most OF wild
days, when the mighty drumroll of the
breakers is sounded from the harbor
bar, and the winds of the Atlantic
blow their mad clarIons in the barbi-
can. and all the white cavalry of Ocean
charge the long coral coast. 49,.
-.
...... A shadow climbs the scarp of
the sca-battery.-pasSes the covered
way,-crosses the ditch,-mounts the
contemporaries beyond the
bastionS. A moment more and it re-
appears,-still coming from the sea !;
1t is moving in circles with a swift
swimming motion, as of an OPAQUE
ness floating vaguely in the humors of
the eye. Now it is only passing fleck.
shapcless blot; now it is the phan-
tom of boat.
Look up, into the brightncss,-into
the violet blaze l-behold him towering
in the splendor of heaven, sailing be-
fore the sun, that Kharkas, dwelling
in dccay,"-whom the Parsec revercs
For tits written that even the fitting
of his shadow over the faces of the
dead driveth out the unclean spirit
that cntereth into corpscs.) sFrom
the height of his highest flight he dis
cerneth If there be upon the ground a
morsel of flesh not bigger than hand:
and for his comfort the odor of musk
hath been created underneath his
wing. How magnificent his soar
ing yet the vast pinions never beat !:
they veer only with his wheeling
sometimes presenting to the meridian
their whole black anner-brcadth.-
sometimes offering only the sabre
curves of their edges. He seems to
float by volition alone,-to swim the
deeps of day without effort. Higher
and higher he mounts into the abyss
of light; now he seems to hang beside
the sun NOW he is only whirling
speck nov he is gonei NV field
glass brings him again into view for
moment-sailing, circling, spring by
turns; but once more he dwindIcs into
a mote, not bigger than tiny flake of
SCOT, which rises up, up, up, and van
ishes away at last into luminous cter-
mites unfathomable. Yet from those
invisible heights his eye still scans the
face OF the land and the features of
men-that wondrous eye far reaching
as a beam of daylight. "Therc is
path," saith job, "which no fowl
knoweth, and tohich The eye ofthe UuE-
ture hath not Seenp But that path |
lies not open to the gaze of the sun;
for whatsoever earthly thing the day.
star hath looked upon, that thing the |
Ken OF the vulture also hath discerned. |
therefore, hath the eve of the
vulturc been mythologically likened
unto the eye of deities and of demons.
Was not the sacred symbol of Isis, the
lmpcnetrably Veilcd,-Isis, mother of
Gods, ~Eye of the Sum-" who by the
quivering of her feathers creatcth
light, who by the beating of her wings
crcateth spirit,--a Golden VuIture, the
saving emblem hung about the throat
of the dead And the. vulturcs of the
Vedic prayer to Indra, which are all
seeing demons and the great sun
vultures ofthe Sanscrit epic, which are
dcmi-gods, come to remembrance. Bv
vision alone it was given the bird
Gatayus to know the past, the present
and that which was to come; for, en-
comprising the world in his flight, all
things were disccrned by his gaze.
y ghoul of the empyrean, we'll doth
Thy brother, the Shadow-caster OF de-
'erts, know the time of the going and
The coming of the caravans; aud he
maketh likewiSe each year the pilgrim
lgc to the tomb of the Prophet thy
cousins sit upon the Towers of Silence
and the charnel-pIts of the dakhmas
have no secrets for thcml From the
eternal silences of heaven,-from the
heights that are ccholess aud never
reached by human cry,-progcnitors of
,hine have watched the faces of con-
.inents wrinkle in the revolution of
they have witnessed the
growth and the extinction of nations
hey have read the crimson history of
| hundred thousand wars.
Another shadow crosses my feet
md yet another passes; the orbits of
heir circlings intercross Hanging
above the dark fort those black sill
louettes cutting sharply athwart the
azure, seem griinly appropriate to this
Doubtless the ghastly birds
nave haunted the coast for centuries.
The Spaniard who gave SO many