Читать книгу The South Country онлайн

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Beautiful upon the waters, beautiful upon the mountains, is the cuckoo’s song, and most rare over the snow. But of all places and hours I should choose the crags of Land’s End in a dawn of June; and let it be the end of that month and the wind be grey and cold, so that the ships stagger in the foam and crag-like waves as they catch the early light tenderly upon their sails. The cold beams, the high precipices yet full of shadow and of the giddy calling of daw and gull, the black but white-lipped water and the blacker cormorant flying straight across it just over the foam, the sky golden yet still pallid and trembling from the dungeon of night—through it floats that beloved voice breaking, breaking, and the strong year at the summit of its career has begun to decline. The song is memorable and fair also when the drenched gardens toss and spread their petals in the grass. Many a one hears it who will not hear it again, and many that once expected it impatiently hears it no more because he is old and deaf or because his heart is closed. There is not a broad and perfect day of heat and wind and sunshine that is not haunted by that voice seeming to say the earth is hollow under our feet and the sky hollow over our heads.