n
hedgerow and field; but light over all the world. Full shone now its
awful globe, one pallid charnel-house,--a ball strewn bright with human
ashes, glaring in poised sway beneath the sun, all blinding-white with
death from pole to pole,--death, not of myriads of poor bodies only,
but of will, and mercy, and conscience; death, not once inflicted on
the flesh, but daily, fastening on the spirit; death, not silent or
patient, waiting his appointed hour, but voiceful, venomous; death with
the taunting word, and burning grasp, and infixed sting.

"Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe."[135] The word is spoken
in our ears continually to other reapers than the angels,--to the busy
skeletons that never tire for stooping. When the measure of iniquity is
full, and it seems that another day might bring repentance and
redemption,--"Put ye in the sickle." When the young life has been
wasted all away, and the eyes are just opening upon the tracks of ruin,
and faint resolution rising in the heart for nobler things,--"Put ye in
the sickle." When the roughest blows of fortune have been borne long
and bravely, and the hand is just stretched to grasp its goal,--"Put ye
in the sickle." And when there are but a few in the midst of a nation,
to save it, or to teach, or to cherish; and all its life is bound up in
those few golden ears,--"Put ye in the sickle, pale reapers, and pour
hemlock for your feast of harvest home."

This was the sight which opened on the young eyes, this the watchword
sounding within the heart of Turner in his youth.

So taught, and prepared for his life's labour, sate the boy at last
alone among his fair English hills; and began to paint, with cautious
toil, the rocks, and fields, and trickling brooks, and soft white
clouds of heaven.

[120] c. 1478-1511.

[121] Dante, alluding to Florence, _Paradiso_, 25. 5. "From the
fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered." Longfellow's tr.

[122] Allusions to pictures by Turner, The Garden of the
Hesperides, and The Meuse: Orange-Merchantman going to pieces on
the Bar.

[123] The pictures referred to are: The Death of Nelson, The Battle
of Trafalgar, and The Fighting Temeraire being towed to its Last
Berth (see cut). The first and third are in the National Gallery,
London.

[124] _Matthew_ xxiii, 14.

[125] Santa Maria della Salute, a church conspicuously situated at
the junction of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca.

[126] _L