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Speaker 1: Christmas Weather in Scotland by David Gray. A winter day,

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the feather silent snow thickens the air with strange delight,

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and lays a fairy carpet on the barren lee. No

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sun yet all around that inward light, which is in purity,

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a soft moonshine, the silvery dimness of a happy dream.

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How beautiful afar on moorland ways bosomed by mountains, darkened

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by huge glens, where the lone altar raised by druid

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hands stands like a mournful phantom. Hidden clouds let fall

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soft beauty till each green fir branch is plumed and tasseled,

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till each heather stalk is delicately fringed. The sycamores, through

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all their mystical entanglement of boughs, are draped with silver,

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all the green of sweet leaves, playing with the subtle

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air in dainty murmuring, the obstinate drone of limber bees,

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that in the Monk's hood bells hows diligent, the imperishable

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glow of summer sunshine, never more confessed the harmony of nature,

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the divine, diffusive spirit of the beautiful out in the

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snowy dimness, half revealed like ghosts in glimpsing moonlight, wildly

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run the children in bewildering delight. There is a living

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glory in the air, a glory, and the hushed air

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in the soul, a palpitating wonder, hushed in awe softly

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with delicate softness, as the light quickens in the undawned east,

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and silently with definite silence, as the stealing dawn dapples.

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The floating clouds slow fall, slow fall, with indecisive motion,

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eddying down the light winged flakes, calm as a sleep

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of sound, dim as a dream. The silver misted air

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shines with mild radiance, as when through a cloud of

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semulucent vapor shines the moon I saw last evening, when

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the ruddy sun enlarged and strange sank woe and visibly

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spreading fierce orange o'er the west, a scene of winter

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in his milder mood. Green fields which no kind cropped,

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lay damp and naked trees through skeleton shadows, hedges thickly grown,

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twined into compact firmness with no leaves, trembled in jeweled

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fretwork as the sun to luster touched the tremulous water

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drops alone nor whistling as his fellows do. In fabled

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poem and provincial song, the plowboy shouted to his reeking train,

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and at the clamor from a neighboring field arose, with

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whirr of wings, a flock of rooks, more clamorous, and

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through the frosted air, blown wildly here and there without

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a law, they flew low, grumbling out aquacious croaks. Red

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sunset brightened all things. Streams ran red, yet coldly, and

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before the unwholesome east, searching the bones and breathing ice,

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blew down the hill with a dry whistle by the

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fire in chamber. Twilight rested eye at home. But now

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what revelation A fair change, O, giver of the seasons

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and the days, creator of all elements, Pale mists, invisible,

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great winds and exact frost. How shall I speak the

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wonder of thy snow? What, though we know its essence

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and its birth, can quick expound in philosophic wise the

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how and whence and manner of its fall? Yet, oh,

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the inner beauty and the life, the life that is

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in snow, the virgin, soft and utter purity, of the

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down flake falling upon its fellow with no sound, unblown

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by vulgar winds, innumerous flakes fall gently with the gentleness

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of love. The earth is cherished for beneath the soft,

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pure uniformity is gently borne warmth and rich mildness, fitting

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the dead roots for the resuscitation of the spring. Now,

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while I write the wonder clothes, the veil calmed every

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wind and loaded every grove, And looking through the implicated boughs,

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I see a gleaming radiance, sparkling snow refined by morning

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footed frosts, so still mantles each bough, and such a

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windless hush breathes through the air. It seems the fairy

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glen about some phantom palace, pale abode of fabled sleeping beauty.

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Songless birds flit restlessly about the breathless wood, waiting the

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sudden breaking of the charm. And as they quickly spring

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on nimble wing from the white twig, a sparkling shower

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falls starlike. It is not whiteness, but a clear outshining

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of all purity, which takes the winking eyes with such

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a silvery gleam. No sunshine, and the sky is all

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one cloud, the veil seems lonely, ghostlike, while aloud the

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housewife's voice is heard with doubled sound. I have not

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words to speak. The perfect show, the ravishment of beauty,

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the delight of silent purity, the sanctity of inspiration which

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overflows the world, making it breathless with divinity. So thus

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with fair delaption, softly falls the sacred shower. And when

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the shortened day, dejected dies in the low, streaky west,

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the rising moon displays a cold blue night and keen

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as steel. The east wind sprinkles ice thicker than bees

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about the waxing moon gather the punctual stars. Huge whitened

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hills rise, glimmering to the blue verge of the night,

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ghost like and striped with narrow glens of furs, black

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waving solemn or the luggy stream gathers a veiny film

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of ice and creeps with elfin feet round each stone

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and reed working fine masonry. O o'er the dam dashing.

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A noise of waters fills the clear and nitrous air

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all the dark wintry hours. Sharply the winds from the

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white level moor's keen whistle timorous in his homely bed,

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the schoolboy listens fearful less gaunt wolves or beasts whose

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uncouth forms in ancient books. He has beheld at creaking shutters,

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pull howling, And when at last the languid dawn in

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wind redness re illumes the east with ineffectual fire, an

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intense blue, severely vivid o'er, the snowy hills gleams chill,

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while hazy, half transparent clouds slow range the freezing ether

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of the west. Along the woods. The keenly vehement blasts

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wail and disrobe the mantled boughs, and fling a snowdust everywhere.

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Thus wears the day, while grandfather over the well watched

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fire hangs cowering with a cold drop at his nose.

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Now underneath the ice, the luggy growls, and to the

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polished smoothness curlers come rudely ambitious. Then for happy hours

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the clinking stones are slid from wary hands, and barley

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corn best wine for surly airs, bites in the mouth,

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and ancient jokes cracked. And oh the journey homeward. When

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the sun low rounding to the west in ruddy glow,

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sinks large and all the ambuskirted clouds, his flaming retinue

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with darkening glow diverge. The broom is brandished as the

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sign of conquest, and impetuously they boast of how this

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shot was played with what a bend peculiar, the perfection

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of all art, that stone came rolling grandly to the

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tee with victory crown and flinging wide the rest and

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lordly crash within the village inn. They, by the roaring chimney,

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sit and quaff. The beaded yisqueba with sugar dashed. Oh,

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when the precious liquid fires the brain to joy, and

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every heart beats fast with mirth and ancient fellowship. What

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nervy grasps of horny hands, or tables of rough oak,

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What singing of lang's eye till tear drops shine and

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friendships brighten as the evening wanes. End of Christmas Weather

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in Scotland by David Gray