ON WHITE ISLAND. I. I WELL remember my first sight of White Island, where we took up our abode on leaving the mainland. I was scarcely five years old; but from the upper windows of our dwelling in Portsmouth I had been shown the clustered masts of ships lying at the wharves along the Piscataqua River, faintly outlined against the sky, and baby as I was, even then I was drawn with a vague longing seaward. How delightful was that long, first sail to the Isle of Shoals! How pleasant the unaccustomed sound of the incessant ripple against the boat-side, the sight of the wide water and the limitless sky, the warmth of the broad sunshine that made us all blink like young sandpipers, as we sat in triumph, perched among the household goods with which the little raft was laden. It was at sunset that we were set ashore on that loneliest, lovely rock, where the lighthouse looked down on us like some tall, black-capped giant, and filled me with awe and wonder. At its base a few goats were grouped on the rocks, standing out against the red sky as I looked up at them. The stars were beginning to twinkle, the wind blew cold, charged with the sea's sweetness; the sound of many waters half bewildered me. Some one began to light the lamps in the tower. Rich, red and golden they swung round in mid-air; everything was strange and fascinating and new. We entered the quaint little old stone cottage that was for six years our home. How curious it seemed, with its low, whitewashed ceiling, and deep window-seats showing the great thickness of the walls made to withstand the breakers, with whose forces we soon grew acquainted! 2. In the long covered walk that bridged the gorge between the lighthouse and the house we played in stormy days, and every evening it was fresh excitement to watch the lighting of the lamps, and think how far the lighthouse sent its rays, and how many hearts it gladdened with assurance of safety. As I grew older I was allowed to kindle the lamps sometimes myself. That was indeed a pleasure. So little a creature as I might do so much for the great world! We waited for the spring with an eager longing; the advent of the growing grass, the birds and flowers and insect life, the soft skies and softer winds, the everlasting beauty of the thousand tender tints that clothed the world-these things brought us unspeakable bliss. 3. With the first warm days we built our little mountains of wet gravel on the beach, and danced like the sandpipers at the edge of the foam, shouted to the gossiping kittiwakes that fluttered above, or watched the pranks of the burgomaster gull, or cried to the crying loons. The gannet's long white wings stretched overhead, perhaps, or the dusky shag made a sudden shadow in mid-air, or we startled on some lonely ledge the great blue heron, that flew off, trailing legs and wings, stork-like, against the clouds. Or in the sunshine on the bare rocks we cut from the broad brown leaves of the slippery, varnished kelps grotesque shapes of man and bird and beast, that withered in the wind and blew away; we fashioned rude boats from bits of driftwood, manned them with a weird crew of kelpies, and set them adrift on the great deep, to float we cared not whither. 4. We played with empty limpet-shells; they were mottled gray and brown, like the song-sparrow's breast. We launched fleets of purple musselshells on the still pools in the rocks left by the tide, pools that were like bits of fallen rainbow with the wealth of the sea, with tints of delicate seaweed, crimson and green and ruddy brown and violet; where wandered the pearly eolis with rosy spines and fairy horns, and the large round sea-urchins, like a boss upon a shield, were fastened here and there on the rock at the bottom, putting out from their green, prickly spikes transparent tentacles to seek their invisible food, 5. I remember in the spring kneeling on the ground to seek the first blades of grass that pricked through the soil, and bringing them into the house to study and wonder over. Better than a shop full of toys were they to me. Whence came their color? How did they draw their sweet, refreshing tint from the brown earth, or the limpid air, or the white light? Later, the little scarlet pimpernel charmed me. It seemed more than a flower; it was like a human thing. I knew it by its homely name of poor-man's weather-glass. It was so much wiser than I, for when the sky was yet without a cloud, softly it clasped its little red petals together, folding its golden heart in safety from the shower that was sure to come! How could it know so much? Here is a question science cannot answer. 6. The pimpernel grows everywhere about the islands, in every cleft and cranny where a suspicion of sustenance for its slender root can lodge; and it is one of the most exquisite of flowers, so rich in color, so quaint and dainty in its method of growth. I never knew its silent warning fail. I wondered much how every flower knew what to do and be: why the morning-glory didn't forget sometimes and bear a cluster of elder-bloom, or the elder hang out pennons of gold and purple like the iris, or the golden-rod suddenly blaze out a scarlet plume the color of the pimpernel, was a mystery to my childish thought. And why did the sweet wild primrose wait till after sunset to unclose its pale-yellow buds; why did it unlock its rich treasures of perfume to the night alone? 7. Many a morning I have crept out of the still house before any one was awake, and, wrapping myself closely from the chill wind of dawn, climbed to the top of the high cliff called the Head, to watch the sunrise. Pale grew the lighthouse flame before the broadening day, as, nestled in a crevice at the cliff's edge, I watched the shadows draw away and morning break. Facing the east and south, with all the Atlantic before me, what happiness was mine as the deepening rose-color flushed the delicate cloud-flocks that dappled the sky, where the gulls soared, rosy too, while the calm sea blushed beneath. 8. Or perhaps it was the cloudless sunrise, with a sky of orange-red, and the sea-line silver blue against it, pure as heaven. Infinite variety of beauty always awaited me, and filled me with an absorbing, unreasoning joy, such as makes the songsparrow sing—a sense of perfect bliss. Coming back in the sunshine, the morning-glories would lift up their faces, all awake to my adoring gaze. It seemed as if they had gathered the peace of the golden morning in their still depths even as my heart had gathered it. Celia Thaxter, THE REAPER. 1. BEHOLD her, single in the field, Reaping and singing by herself; |