Our tastes
did not quite agree. Her favorite description of the clouds was
from Pollok:--
"They seemed like chariots of saints,
By fiery coursers drawn; as brightly hued
As if the glorious, bushy, golden locks
Of thousand cherubim had been shorn off,
And on the temples hung of morn and even."
I liked better a translation from the German, beginning
"Methinks it were no pain to die
On such an eve, while such a sky
O'ercanopies the west."
And she generally had to hear the whole poem, for I was very fond
of it; though the especial verse that I contrasted with hers
was,--
"There's peace and welcome in yon sea
Of endless blue tranquillity;
Those clouds are living things;
I trace their veins of liquid gold,
And see them silently unfold
Their soft and fleecy wings."
Then she would tell me that my nature inclined to quietness and
harmony, while hers asked for motion and splendor. I wondered
whether it really were so. But that huge, creaking framework
beside us would continually intrude upon our meditations and
break up our discussions, and silence all poetry for us with its
dull prose.
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