GATES OF THE MORNING 67 



sunset ; they are infinitely pure, infinitely brilliant, 

 and they come as a herald of life itself to those who 

 can wake to greet another morning willingly ; but 

 there is something in the mellow departure of an 

 old, wise day that brings a quicker answer from my 

 heart-strings. Dawn images hope and young lives 

 anew begun ; sunset's shadows, ripe radiance, and 

 lingering afterglow strike to deeper thoughts and 

 graver. Then pigeons croon in the pine, and the 

 weary world broods a little before the blessings of 

 sleep and night. 



"And still, while a man tells the story, the sun gets 

 up higher, till he shows a fair face and a full light ; 

 and then he shines one whole day under a cloud 

 often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, 

 and sets quickly ; so is a man's reason and his life." 



But this morning spoke of no shadows. It spread 

 and swept in waves of increasing splendour upon 

 heath and stone, river and valley, and the huge 

 bosoms of many hills. Dawn glimmered like an 

 opal on the breast of the whole earth ; then its play 

 of colours passed, and frank day flooded the world 

 and drank the dew. Delicious tones and deep 

 shadows touched the red cattle and defined their 

 modelling; the cuckoo cried, and his song echoed 

 from the stone wall over against his resting-place 

 on a whitethorn ; the planes of the Moor arose up 

 each out of the other ; new glories grew beneath 

 the uplifted sun ; cloud shadows raced free and 

 passed over the earth like cool presences ; little 



