Ceyx and Halcyone––––––––
“St. Martin’s summer, halcyon days.”
- King Henry VI, i. 2, 131.
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“Halcyon days”—how often is the expression made use of, how seldom do its users realise from whence they have borrowed it.
“These were halcyon days,” says the old man, and his memory wanders back to a time when for him
“All the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen.”
Yet the story of Halcyone is one best to be understood by the heavy-hearted woman who wanders along the bleak sea-beach and strains her weary eyes for the brown sail of the fishing-boat that will never more return.
Over the kingdom of Thessaly, in the days of long ago, there reigned a king whose name was Ceyx, son of Hesperus, the Day Star, and almost as
