o better advantage to treat it freely, just as if it were my own
production. It had often happened to him, he went on to say, to be
interrupted in his observations by clouds covering the objects he was
examining for a longer or shorter time. In these idle moments he had put
down many thoughts, unskilfully he feared, but just as they came into
his mind. His blank verse he suspected was often faulty. His thoughts he
knew must be crude, many of them. It would please him to have me amuse
myself by putting them into shape. He was kind enough to say that I was
an artist in words, but he held himself as an unskilled apprentice.

I confess I was appalled when I cast my eye upon the title of the
manuscript, "Cirri and Nebulae."

--Oh! oh!--I said,--that will never do. People don't know what
Cirri are, at least not one out of fifty readers. "Wind-Clouds and
Star-Drifts" will do better than that.

--Anything you like,--he answered,--what difference does it make how you
christen a foundling? These are not my legitimate scientific offspring,
and you may consider them left on your doorstep.

--I will not attempt to say just how much of the diction of these lines
belongs to him, and how much to me. He said he would never claim them,
after I read them to him in my version. I, on my part, do not wish to be
held responsible for some of his more daring thoughts, if I should see
fit to reproduce them hereafter. At this time I shall give only the
first part of the series of poetical outbreaks for which the young
devotee of science must claim his share of the responsibility. I may put
some more passages into shape by and by.

WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS.

I

Another clouded night; the stars are hid,
The orb that waits my search is hid with them.
Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year,
To plant my ladder and to gain the round
That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame,
Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won?
Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear
That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel
Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust;
But the fair garland whose undying green
Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or men!

With quickened heart-beats I shall hear the tongues
That speak my praise; but better far the sense
That in the unshaped ages, buried deep
In the dark mines of unaccomplishe