Halcyon

Pr’ythee soon, Even in the passing of thine honey-moon, Visit thou my Cytherea: thon wilt find Cupid well-natured, my Adonis kind; And pray persuade with thee—Ah, I have done, All blisses be upon thee, my sweet son!”— Thus the fair goddess: while Endymion Knelt to receive those accents halcyon.

The TV set shouted, " - duplicates the halcyon days of the pre-Civil War Southern states!

That as men of the “historical sense” we have our virtues, is not to be disputed:—we are unpretentious, unselfish, modest, brave, habituated to self-control and self-renunciation, very grateful, very patient, very complaisant—but with all this we are perhaps not very “tasteful.” Let us finally confess it, that what is most difficult for us men of the “historical sense” to grasp, feel, taste, and love, what finds us fundamentally prejudiced and almost hostile, is precisely the perfection and ultimate maturity in every culture and art, the essentially noble in works and men, their moment of smooth sea and halcyon self-sufficiency, the goldenness and coldness which all things show that have perfected themselves.

Overhead, on the wallto-wall mural depicting Derry as it had been during its halcyon lumbering days at the turn of the century, dark brown arrow-shapes chased each other, growing closer and closer together until they touched.

Halcyon Days Not from successful love alone, Nor wealth, nor honor’d middle age, nor victories of politics or war; But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm, As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky, As softness, fullness, rest, suffuse the frame, like fresher, balmier air, As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish’d and indolent-ripe on the tree, Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!

II But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare The boy’s drowned body back to Grecian land, And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand; Some brought sweet spices from far Araby, And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

Halcyon days.

Second Shepherd Aye, quivering as yon smoke That from the fire is ever pouring up, Within the woodways, blue as the halcyon’s wing, Star-envious.

Is that a deal?’ That was the most illogical Thanksgiving he could ever remember spending, and his thoughts returned wishfully to his halcyon fourteen-day quarantine in the hospital the year before; but even that idyll had ended on a tragic note; he was still in good health when the quarantine period was over, and they told him again that he had to get out and go to war.

He had been a pioneer in California, and could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon days.