The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
And Algy waits… and wonders just how many tides will rise and fall before the colours fade away.
[From The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.]
Algy discovered that walking over a rainbow is more tiring than he had expected. He found a comfortable rock to rest on, and sat quietly dangling his foot over the water, watching the rippling light, and listening to the soothing sounds of the sea.
[The video may take a few seconds to load properly. Click the play arrow and wait for the progress bar to fill.]
Algy had heard a Navajo proverb or song which he liked very much:
“Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail.”
But he hadn’t quite foreseen all the consequences of following its advice …
Bathing in a rainbow is most invigorating, although Algy felt somewhat dithered as a result of all the colours …
The early spring brings little warmth to the West Highlands. But it brings golden light against a stormy sky, and glowing rainbows to bathe in …
Algy was feeling rather glum. His oldest friends had suffered a sad loss, and they had gone away for a while. The wind felt melancholy too, and blew the mist back in from the sea.
He was reminded of the poem Lassitude by Mathilde Blind, although his own sea was greenish-grey…
A fisher-boy, in level line,
Cast stone by stone into the brine:
Methought I too might do as he,
And cast my sorrows on the sea.
The sky cleared as darkness fell. Algy took flight in the cold night air, and marvelled at the universe.
[As Algy discovered, you may have to watch and wait to see a shooting star …]
Algy dyed his hair green, and recited one of his favourite poems:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
[Listen to The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats read by the poet himself, in an archive recording published as part of the BBC Poetry Season.]
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.
Tired of the endless mist, Algy fell asleep in the tree, and dreamed …
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine …
With the sea lost again in the dense Scotch mist, Algy spent a gloomy day in the larch tree, practising his recitation of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, that cautionary tale which every young albatross is required to learn by heart.
The Adventures of Algy 