EVENING LIGHT 169 



nature, the red light comes. Even to the dark hearts 

 of forests these living lances find an entrance, until, 

 broken by great and lesser boughs, barred and 

 shattered in the wilderness of living woods, they 

 merge again into a liquid splendour that burns without 

 candescence and floods the forest with misty gold. A 

 web of fire trembles in the secret places of the trees, 

 hangs above the stocks and stones, the mosses and 

 ivies, the stealthy flowers, and those sanguine, young, 

 silver saplings upspringing that rise at the feet of 

 their ancestors and answer for the future prosperity 

 of this scene. These things know not the noontide 

 sun in their sequestered haunts and dim dwelling- 

 places, for the crowns of the wood win all his 

 splendour, and it is only in clear dawns or at the 

 hour before twilight that he pierces the hidden under- 

 world with flame. 



To the West the sun is stooping and sinking upon 

 the bosom of the hills, until by that descent, seen 

 through earth's lovely veil, he shares the very pulse 

 and heart-beat of life, and comes close to his planet- 

 child for one moment before passing. Then may we 

 look on his face with eyes undimmed, and watch him 

 throb and vanish to waken a sleeping hemisphere and 

 call other men to their labour. At noon he is master 

 and monarch ; all life waits beside his throne, and all 

 mundane existence depends upon his lustre ; but in 

 this hour a time for rest and dreaming shall be 

 found ; and the roseal sunshine smiles upon us, like 

 the spirit of a familiar and a friend. Now do things 



