ECHOES OF THE GLOAMING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1696, 31 August 1904, Page 89 (Supplement)

ECHOES OF THE GLOAMING

NU/: \ . '(By a Banker.) • •• ; V;: [i . ■ . The iflashing- carmine anil the gulden ; amber of the . western v skies has.; faded • 0 away, and lias - given placer to a lovely mauve, now tinged with pale emerald. : „ •-now. as the lingering shades of evening steal: on, assuming a soft aquamarine : /hue, aiid slowly, through all the gradations of empurpled amethyst and of rich damask, merging with the night. The ;; . c azure of the zenith has given place to a darkening violet-indigo, and the evanescent wisps of rose-hued cloudlets have dis- • •-,'4 solved into thin air. One by one, the ad- . ■' • vancing night, reveals those glittering ! 1 , orbs, which later on will, in their thousands, gem the canopied vault of heaven 4. in a galaxy of. scintillating , splendour; v , Hesperus ;n all her soft and transcendent ■ beauty: reigning supreme over them all, brighter even than mighty Arcturps, far more lustrous than blood-red Aldebaran, or than Oapella in her. greatest glory. ' , And now the many voices of the gloam- ' ing are breathing out their apostrophes ' • to the waning twilight, or are pouring forth their impassioned love songs in a • ; very torrent of tuneful melody. The song--44; thrush is still waking the echoes, and. in l . emulation of the nightingale, pealing forth its songs almost into the night; the - sedge, warblers, in a joyous, many-voiced chorus, are, rollicking out their joy as , though' in a positive .rapture of glad <le-. L ."night-par is solacing its ; 4 mate with that strange churnng whirr, J ;> 4.- ' whirr, tut-whirr, which so startles those j 4 who hear it for the first time; while the .owl, sailing past like a spectre, is utter- - ..‘ ing its discordant hoots. ••But of all the songsters of the night Philomel, their queen, is supreme. How in a passionate ecstacy she is pealing forth a triumphant paean, a pulsating . trill of vibrating cadence, a very not or harmonious rhythm; now, for a moment sinking into a plaintive dirge or a trembwwf ling lament, as though the memories of some great grief were crushing her .4 down; and now once more blithely carol4v' ling out her hilarious joy in a chaunt ot , 4 ’ exultant glee. v 4 And, too, there are other pleasures, l 44:. ofcher attractions, of the gloaming How 4 Hharoly does the queen of the woods stand out in silhouette against the Availing light Sch glints fitfully midst her droop. »*,

is the air perfumed now that the evening hour is come. And Avhat a sense of peace, and tranquil calm and repose, has supplanted the turmoil and the toilsome stress of the day. And so, too, should it be in the evening of life, Avhen the. darkening shadows are closing around, and when the retrospect of the past in all its vivid reality courses unbidden, through the mind. Happy, thrice happy they who are as certain as it is possible to be of anything that all their misdeeds have been obliterated from the record of High in virtue of the expiation made for them by their Redeemer, whom they have loved, and whom they have served. For for them there can be no condemnation