Part 37 (1/2)
The king seized the goblet, he swung it on high, And whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide; ”But bring back that goblet again to my eye, And I'll hold thee the dearest that rides by my side; And thine arms shall embrace as thy bride, I decree, The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee”
And Heaven, as he listen'd, spoke out from the space, And the hope that azed on the blush in that beautiful face-- It pales--at the feet of her father she lies!
How priceless the guerdon!--a es to life and to death!
They hear the loud surges sweep back in their swell, Their co!
Fond eyes yet are tracking the spot where he fell
They co up to the cliff,--roaring back as before, But no wave ever brings the lost youth to the shore!
LXI THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS
CARDINAL NEWMAN--1801-
_Froer was directed to a spot where, aleam of a pool or of afrohtly daetation of former years
Its banks were bordered with a deep, broad layer of etable matter which it once had been, and theA cloud or h in air A harsh and shrill sound, a whizzing or a chirping, proceeded from that cloud to the ear of the attentive listener What these indications portended was plain
The plague of locusts, one of the most awful visitations to which the countries included in the Roman empire were exposed, extended from the Atlantic to Ethiopia, from Arabia to India, and from the Nile and Red Sea to Greece and the north of Asia Minor Instances are recorded in history of clouds of the devastating insect crossing the Black Sea to Poland, and the Mediterranean to Lombardy It is as nue of territory Brood follows brood, with a sort of family likeness, yet with distinct attributes It wakens into existence and activity as early as the , as in our present history, of its appearance as late as June Even one flight coination, to which the drops of rain or the sands of the sea are the only fit comparison; and hence it is almost a proverbiala vast invading army, to liken it to the locusts So dense are they, when upon the wing, that it is no exaggeration to say that they hide the sun, from which circumstance indeed their name in Arabic is derived And so ubiquitous are they when they have alighted on the earth, that they simply cover or clothe its surface
This last characteristic is stated in the sacred account of the plagues of Egypt, where their faculty of devastation is alsohail preceded them in that series of visitations, but _they_ cahly For not only the crops and fruits, but the foliage of the forest itself, nay, the ss and the bark of the trees are the victietic rapacity They have been known even to gnaw the door-posts of the houses Nor do they execute their task in so slovenly a way, that, as they have succeeded other plagues, so they may have successors themselves They take pains to spoil what they leave Like the Harpies, they s that they touch with a , or as so And then, perhaps, as if all this were little, when they can do nothing else, they die; as if out of sheer malevolence to man, for the poisonous elements of their nature are then let loose and dispersed abroad, and create a pestilence; and they e to destroy many more by their death than in their life
Such are the locusts And now they are rushi+ng upon a considerable tract of that beautiful region of which we have spoken with such adrew till it beca square; yet it was but the vanguard of a series of similar hosts, for into the air like clouds, enlarging into a dusky canopy, and then discharged against the fruitful plain At length the huge innuan its career, darkening the face of day As became an instrument of divine power, it seemed to have no volition of its own; it was set off, it drifted, with the wind, and thus ht for Sicca Thus they advanced, host after host, for a ti to the earth, while fresh broods were carried over the first, and neared the earth, after a longer flight, in their turn For twelveand hissing could be heard for six h hidden by them, illu wings; and as they heavily fell earthward, they seemed like the innumerable flakes of a yellow-colored snow And like snow did they descend, a living carpet, or rather pall, upon fields, crops, gardens, copses, groves, orchards, vineyards, olive woods, orangeries, pal within their reach, and where there was nothing to devour, lying helpless in drifts, or crawling forward obstinately, as they best ht, with the hope of prey
They could spare their hundred thousand soldiers twice or thrice over, and not miss them; their masses filled the botto the traveller as he rode forward on his journey and trampled by thousands under his horse-hoofs In vain was all this overthrow and waste by the roadside, in vain their loss in river, pool, and watercourse The poor peasants hastily dug pits and trenches as their enemy cahted stubble Heavily and thickly did the locusts fall; they were lavish of their lives; they choked the flame and the water, which destroyed the hostile arht on like soldiers in their ranks, stopping at nothing, and straggling for nothing; they carried a broad furroheal all across the country, black and loathso on each side of them and in front, as it had been before they cae of prophets, was a paradise, and behind the they surardens or inhabited houses A rare and experih winds of Africa will not coht trellice or the slim pole; but here the lofty poplar of Campania has been possible, on which the vine plant atherers bargain for a funeral pile and a toe could not do, and the whole proone, and the slender stems are left bare There is another yard, less uncommon, but still tended with more than common care; each plant is kept within due bounds by a circular trench round it, and by upright canes on which it is to trail; in an hour the solicitude and long toil of the vine-dresser are lost, and his pride hu farainst the fars from one root, and has clothed and matted with its many branches the four walls The whole of it is covered thick with long clusters, which another rape and leaf there is a locust Into the dry caves and pits, carefully streith straw, the harvest- the far-farain or root shoots up into ten, twenty, fifty, eighty, nay, three or four hundred stalks: sometimes the stalks have two ears apiece, and these shoot into a number of lesser ones These stores are intended for the Roman populace, but the locusts have been beforehand with the to the poor peasants up and down the country, for raising the turnips, garlic, barley, water-lutton invaders as much as the choicest vines and olives Nor have they any reverence for the villa of the civic decurion or the Roarden, with its cherries, plums, peaches, and apricots, is a waste; as the slaves sit round, in the kitchen in the first court, at their coarse eveningforce, and news comes to them that the enemy has fallen upon the apples and pears in the base the preserves of quince and po in the jars of precious oil of Cyprus and Mendes in the store-rooainst them into the ditch Not a , they climb up the wood or stucco, they surmount the parapet, or they have entered in at the s, filling the apartments, and the most private and luxurious chae or rioters after a victory, but in order of battle, and with the array of an army Choice plants or flowers about the _impluvia_ and _xysti_, for ornaranates, the rose and the carnation, have disappeared They di of the ceilings They enter the triclinium in the midst of the banquet; they crawl over the viands and spoil what they do not devour Unrelaxed by success and by enjoyo; a secretover thee an order that they seem to be a tessellated pavement themselves, and to be the artificial embellishment of the place; so true are their lines, and so perfect is the pattern they describe Onward they go, to the market, to the temple sacrifices, to the bakers' stores, to the cookshops, to the confectioners, to the druggists; nothing coht to eat or drink, there are they, reckless of death, strong of appetite, certain of conquest
Another and a still worse calamity The invaders, as we have already hinted, could be es The inhabitants of the country had attempted, where they could, to destroy thenant animals had resolved that the sufferers should have the benefit of this policy to the full; for they had not got more than twenty miles beyond Sicca when they suddenly sickened and died When they thus had done all the , when they thus had , next they died therave They took from it its hundred forms and varieties of beautiful life, and left it their own fetid and poisonous carcases in pay for the Mediterranean, as if, like other great conquerors, they had other worlds to subdue beyond it; but, whether they were overgorged, or struck by soe, or that their time was come and they paid the debt of nature, so it was that suddenly they fell, and their glory caht, and all was vanity to them as to others, and ”their stench rose up, and their corruption rose up, because they had done proudly”
The hideous swarreen swamps, in the sheltered valleys, in the ditches and furrows of the fields, amid the monuments of their own prowess, the ruined crops and the dishonored vineyards A poisonous eleled with the atmosphere, and corrupted it The disun; a new visitation, not confined to the territory which the ene far and wide, as the ater claimed by the fruits of the earth, which have ceased to exist, is now devoted to the object of ridding theacy which they have received in their stead In vain; it is their last toil; they are digging pits, they are raising piles, for their own corpses, as well as for the bodies of their enerave, burn in the same heap; they sicken while they work, and the pestilence spreads
LXII THE CANE-BOTTOM'D CHAIR
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY--1811-1863