Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer of Grand-PréLived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his household.Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his missal,Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest devotion;Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment!Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended,And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps,Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron;Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village,Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whisperedHurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music.But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was welcome;Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith,Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men;For, since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations,Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people.Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from earliest childhoodGrew up together as brother and sister; and Father Felician,Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their lettersOut of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the plain-song.But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed,Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith.There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold himTake in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything,Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of the cart-wheelLay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders.Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darknessBursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and crevice,Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows,And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in the ashes,Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel.Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle,Down the hillside hounding, they glided away o'er the meadow.Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters,Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallowBrings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings;Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow!Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were children.He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of the morning,Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened thought into action.She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a woman."Sunshine of Saint Eulalie" was she called; for that was the sunshineWhich, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards with applesShe, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and abundance,Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children.
Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and stillness.Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descendingBrought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead.Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening.Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer,Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her collar,Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the seaside,Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them followed the watch-dog,Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct,Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and superblyWaving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers;Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; their protector,When from the forest at night, through the starry silence, the wolves howled.Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes,Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor.Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks,While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles,Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson,Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their uddersUnto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadenceInto the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard,Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into stillness;Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn-doors,Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent.
sting nothing like the sun torrent
Bright rose the sun next day; and all the flowers of the gardenBathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed his tressesWith the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of crystal."Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the shadowy threshold;"See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his fasting and famine,And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bridegroom was coming.""Farewell!" answered the maiden, and, smiling, with Basil descendedDown to the river's brink, where the boatmen already were waiting.Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sunshine, and gladness,Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding before them,Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the desert.Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that succeeded,Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or river,Nor, after many days, had they found him; but vague and uncertainRumors alone were their guides through a wild and desolate Country;Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes,Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the garrulous landlord,That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions,Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the prairies.
Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountainsLift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway,Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's wagon,Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee.Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river Mountains,Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska;And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras,Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert,Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean,Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibrations.Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, beautiful prairies,Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine,Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas.Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck;Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of riderless horses;Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel;Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children,Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war-trailsCircles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture,Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle,By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens.Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders;Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift-running rivers;And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert,Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the brook-side,And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven,Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them.
The smells and sounds of a bustling marketplace wafted through the air, engulfing Crystal. She kept her head down, trying to make herself look as small as possible. This was no place for an IceWing; it was nothing like the placid serenity of the frozen tundra, with only the vaguest scents of a polar bear cub that had passed a week ago. A SandWing bumped into Crystal, pushing the dragonet out of his way with a hiss. Crystal shuddered as his deadly barb trailed past her, only inches from her nose.
The dragon curled up in the falsetto throne was clearly not your normal SkyWing nor IceWing. Spines like icicles dressed her back, with a ring of silver painted around each one. These, and the rest of her scales, were all a pale rose-gold. Thin curved horns which looked far too long jutted out from the back of her skull. Her tail wrapped around behind her and curved up onto the desk, short blood-red spikes coming out of its base and gently resting on a section of the desk with scratches that had been repainted many times over, causing that area to take on a color distinctly lighter than the rest of the wood.
The Giver is a particularly interesting case in terms of imagery. Not only does the reader benefit and feel like they can relate and live through the same experiences through the page, but they get to imagine what it would be like for Jonas to be feeling these things for the very first time.
The next thing Jonas feels resembles 'pinpricks,' but softer. 'Tiny, cold, featherlike feelings peppered his body and face.' As he catches the snowflakes on his tongue, Jonas feels 'dots of cold upon it.' Even though Jonas does not leave the Giver's home, he sees 'a bright, whirling torrent of crystals in the air around him' that 'gather on the backs of his hands, like cold fur.' 2ff7e9595c
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