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[[note]] Dup. [[/note]]
THROUGH THE CLOUD AND THE SEA.  39

bat, which no one has thought of calling a rodent: on the contrary, the hair, the tail, the form of the head and body, the length of the intestines, the heart and blood-vessels, the brain, and the limbs tend to separate the aye-aye from the rodents, and to join it with the Cheiropoda; and although the extraordinary middle digit has no fellow in the whole animal kingdom, yet this modification of the terminal segment of a limb is another link between the aye-aye and that lowest family of the Cheiropoda, the Lemuridae, which, like it, are mostly natives of Madagascar, and, besides being nocturnal in their habits, whence the name Lemures (ghosts), are also distinguished from all other mammals and from each other by peculiar and, at present, unaccountable modifications of the fingers and the toes. In one species the forefinger is as if amputated; in another a single toe bears a claw, while the others bear nails; and in a third, two toes are thus provided with claws.                             

THROUGH THE CLOUD AND THE SEA

I SAT alone at the organ one day and played,
In a desolate, weary mood, a strange, sad strain.
Through mazes of questioning chords my fingers strayed,
While I looked for the end in vain.

For ever there strove in my heart a doubt and a hope;
Light and darkness there in an even struggle warred,
While ever some door in the sky seemed ready to ope,
And ever was shut and barred.

And now the chords would swell like a wave, when the tide
Lunges against the coasts, and storms prevail;
And now, as backward flung by the cliffs, it died
Away in a passionate wail:

Till I looked where a window looked on the west, and lo!
The setting sun was fair, for the storm was o'er,
And he touched the pictured panes with a rosier glow,
Which quivered along the floor,

And lighted the patient face of my saint with smiles,
Till his wistful, far-off eyes grew wondrous sweet;
And a glory streamed adown the throbbing aisles,
That softly possessed my soul.

Then Hope overcame, as with happy tears I bowed,
While the swelling voice of the organ shook the air,
And rolled through the arches, and rose, like a pillar of cloud,
And the glory of God was there.

While the glad pipes thrilled to the rushing flood of sound
That filled all the place; and the phantoms that followed me,
Like the hosts of the cruel king, were whelmed and drowned
In the surge of that mighty sea.

Transcription Notes:
REOPENED - a few mistakes fixed. No indentations are to be used.