between the two New Worlds, they leapt up when the great sun
called them, in whirls and spouts of clear hot steam; and rushed
of their own passion to the northward, while the whirling earth-
ball whirled them east. So north-eastward they rushed aloft,
across the gay West Indian isles, leaving below the glitter of the
flying-fish, and the sidelong eyes of cruel sharks; above the
cane-fields and the plantain-gardens, and the cocoa-groves which
fringe the shores; above the rocks which throbbed with
earthquakes, and the peaks of old volcanoes, cinder-strewn; while,
far beneath, the ghosts of their dead sisters hurried home upon
the north-east breeze.

Wild deeds they did as they rushed onward, and struggled and
fought among themselves, up and down, and round and backward, in
the fury of their blind hot youth. They heeded not the tree as
they snapped it, nor the ship as they whelmed it in the waves; nor
the cry of the sinking sailor, nor the need of his little ones on
shore; hasty and selfish even as children, and, like children,
tamed by their own rage. For they tired themselves by struggling
with each other, and by tearing the heavy water into waves; and
their wings grew clogged with sea-spray, and soaked more and more
with steam. But at last the sea grew cold beneath them, and their
clear steam shrank to mist; and they saw themselves and each other
wrapped in dull rain-laden clouds. Then they drew their white
cloud-garments round them, and veiled themselves for very shame;
and said: "We have been wild and wayward; and, alas! our pure
bright youth is gone. But we will do one good deed yet ere we
die, and so we shall not have lived in vain. We will glide onward
to the land, and weep there; and refresh all things with soft warm
rain; and make the grass grow, the buds burst; quench the thirst