Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1897-04-01

OutShope the last that !lghtened.
Swinburne,
Midnight, without darkness, without
stars. Midnight, and the unwoaried
sun stood, yet visible in the heavens,
like victorious king throned on diazI
of royal purple Dordered with gold, Thoi
sky above him,-his canopy, --gleamed
with cold yet lustrous blue. while
across it slowly lifted few wandering
clouds of palest amber, deepening, as
they sailed along, to a tawny orange,
broad stream of light filling, as i'll
were, from the centre of the magnifi-
cent orb. shot lengthwise across the
Altenfjord, turning its waters to mass
OF quiverius and shittiuS color that
alternated from bronze to "copper" from
copper to silver and azure. The sur
rounding hills glowed with warm,
deep violet tint. fecked here and there
with touches of bright red, as though
uiries were lighting tiny hontires on
heir SUBMITS. Away III the distance
huge mass of rock stood out to view, its
rugged lines transtigured into ethereal
loneliness by misty veil of tender rose
pink.--a hue curiously suggestive of
some ,,h,r and smaller sun that might
have tust set. Absolute silence pre-
vailed Not even the cry-of n sea-mcw
or kittiwake broke the almost deathlike
stillness,-no breath of wind stirred
ripple ON the CLASSY water. The whole
scene might well have been the fantastic
dream of some imaginative painter,
whose ambition scared beyond the
| limits of human skill. Yet it was only
one of those million wonderful effects
| OF sky and sea which are common in
Norway especially on the Altenfjord,
where, though beyond the Arctic circle,
| the climate in summer is that of an
other Italy, and the landscape living
poem fairer than the visions OF Endy-
mion.
There was one solitary watcher of
he splendid spectacle, ST'his was man
If refined features and aristocratic 40
pearance. who, reclining on large rug
of skins which he had thrown SHOWN
on the AsRoref for that purpose was
gazing at the pageant Of the midnight
sun and all its stately surroundings,
with an earnest and rapt expression in
mis- clear, hazel eyes.
GLORIOUS! beyond all expectation
glorious," he murmured half aloud, as
he consulted his watch and saw THAI
the hands marked exactly Twelve on the
dial. 81 believe I'm having the best OF
it. after all. Even If those fellows get
the Eulalie into good position rney will
see nothing finer than this,
AS he spoke he raised his feld-glass
and swept the horizon in search OF, 4
vessel,-his own pleasure yacht, which
had taken three Of his friends, at their
special desire, to the opposite island of
Seiland. -Seiland, rising in weird ma
josty three thousand feet above the sea,
and boasting as its chief glory theEreat
peak of Jedke the most northern glacier
in all the wild Norwegian land. There
was no sign Of returning sail, and he
resumed his study OF the sumptuous
sky, the colors Of which were now deep
eling and burning with increasing lus-
/
deepest purple hue, swept gorgeously to-
gethor b., cath the sun as though to
form his footstool.
"One might imagine that the trump
II tho Resurrection had sounded and
that all this aerial pomp, this strange
silence, was just the pause, the SUI
preme moment before the angels de-
scended," he unused, with a half-smlle
at his own fancy for though something
Of a poet at heart, he was much more
Of a cynic. He was too deeply imbued
with modern fashionable atheism to
think seriously about angels or Resur-
rection trumps but there was a certain
love Of mysticism and romance in his
nature, which not even his Oxford eX
periences and the chilly dizziness Of
English materallsm had been able IN
eradicate And there was something
impressive in the sight of the majestic
orb holding such imperial revel at mid
night, something almost unearthly in
the light and life OF the heavens, as
compared with the reverental and seem
ingly worshipping silence of the earth,
that for a few moments. awed him
into a sense OF the spiritual and unseen.
Mythical passages from the poets he
loved came into his memory, and stray
fragments OF old songs and ballads he
had known in his childhood returned
to him with haunting persistence ri
was, for him, one Of those sudden halts
IN life which we all experience, an in
slant when time and the world seem
to stand still, as though to permit us
easy breathing: brief space in which
we are allowed to stop and wonder
awhile at the strange unaccountable
force within us, that enables lis to stand
with snch calm, smiling audacity on
our small pins point OF the present,
between the wide dark gaps Of past
and future: small hush in which
the gigantic engines Of the universe ap-
pear to reyolve no more, and the i'm
mortal Soul OF man itself Is subjected
and oyer-rnled by supreme and eternal
Thought, Drifting away on those DEL
icate imperceptible lines that lie batween