HARMONY IN GOLD 211 



Because the leaves have gleaned from the rain and 

 the mist, from the dew and the wind, from the moon- 

 beams and the warm sun -shaft; they have hoarded 

 treasures for trunk and branch ; they have lived beau- 

 tifully the life of leaves, and transmitted of their 

 fulness to the roots that gave them being and the 

 boughs that bore them. 



To-day, indeed, the world seemed itself the image 

 of one infinitely vast tree, whose summit merged with 

 the sky and approached the sun, whose roots struck 

 invisible through the ambient universe and brought 

 something from the last corners of creation. For 

 there were no horizons anywhere ; on every hand 

 earth merged into the regions of the sky ; on every 

 hand secrets of space and treasures from infinity 

 mingled with this great scene, wrapped it in air made 

 visible, glorified my little planet into no mean gem 

 on the heart of the universe. 



The golden link of all matter was visible to me 

 then, and I forgot my insignificance and bulked large 

 upon my own sight as a part appreciable of this 

 splendour. The air that I breathed, and the air that 

 the blue pigeon set pulsing with his swift wing, was 

 the same that hung curtains of unutterable glory 

 round the throne of the sun, that painted the sky 

 and the earth with rainbows, and sustained life in 

 the least created thing. The water that enabled me 

 to exist was the same that piled itself at the sun's 

 touch into precipices and promontories and palaces of 

 cloud ; that came and went from the sky to the sea, 



