The Newtown bee., 1898-03-04


who will kiss her no more,-his only
shroud the fabric of the sea.
1t la some children all sparkling with
the untamed glee of life's young unanx-
ious day. They ask no Paradise but that
of sport. Nature is their great unex-
hausted empire, and kings and queens
are they all Of it's wide joy. And they
crowd, with cheeks redder than the
morn, and with laughter like that which
Homer calls the seas Unreasonable
smile, into the home, to find the sailors
wife with shaded face and a sorrow
deeper than their gayety, as she lifts
them to her lap and hugs them for the
father whose returning step neither
widow nor orphan will await again.
This is the way the sea gives up its
dead. Loneliness and poverty in the
cottage, orphanage and want il child
hoods unsuspecting heart.
And the stately ships go ON
To their haven under the hill,
But o! for touch of O. vanished hand,
And the sound of voice that Is still.
Now, when we get this reality OF a
storm on the sea OR q gale on the sea
coast we can easily understand how
much more rAvaging it is than a
winter tempest on the land. We
have the wild elements and they
rage through country and shrek through
forests and go plunging up the ravine,
and they sweep the snow from the en-
battled cliffs of Mt Holyoke or the graz
tie parapet of Mt Tom in tumul ,uous
masses and bury in one white drifted
grave every thing they can lay their cold
hands upon. But the New England farm.
er takes his lantern and shovel, wades to
the barn, gives bis stock q good night
blessing of fodder, whistles his way back
to the house, toasts his toes, reads his
Republican and his Bible and goes to bed
in peace and rural joy. And when he
wakes in the morniDg he throws open his
shed door to the north or the south, looks
| for the weather vane, estimates the cold
and says only, for the one thousandth
time, "A power of spow." There are nc
disasters, no one freezes to death, this
fierce attack of midwinter fury unroofs
no home, puts out no fire. The family
gather as they did before the cyclone fell
and the good cheer of life and love flows
sweetly on. Not so with the man at the
wheel, or the man On the watch, or the
whole ships crew challenged to their
dread encc unter in the bowling storm
| No roof above, no steady walls around,
the wind flying, the sea torn into flying
frsg nents with it, the mas pitching
with the overturned floods, garments
fr zen stiff with sea water and with cold,
THE DRIVING SNOW MUFFLING THE VOICE
AND BINDING THE EYE.
Is this the scene we know in Springfield
or in Beckett? Then the roaring breakers
worse than the raging wind-for they
mean shallow sands as off cruel Nantuck-
ct, or sharp edged rocks a. off Cape Ann.
Then the shock of breakage and OF death,
Then the sea gives up It's dead.
| One whose experience has been at ali
along this bitter line. who has been bred
| by the ses or seen one OF the worst storms
Of the Atlantic from ship-board or mors
cruelty still has been eharer In the mis-.
fortunes of wrecked vessel has beer
compelled to be witness OF the massive.
ness of the forces of the ocean and the afr
Who that sees drop Of salt water car
dream of the colossal power OF the ocear
when Its depths are stirred and its greai
currents are turned into engines OF VIC
lence? Who that sits By his summer win
dow and bathes both body and heart III
the benign solace Of an evening breeze
can imagine what . tempest is In which
all the winds have become like bowling
savages and are flying about from point
to point in giddy, uncomfortable whirl
as mad IS mad can be, with nothing TO be
mad at except some tiny craft which