3 UNDER THE TREES. 



the foam of the upper sea ; to-day the roses have 

 brought into my little patch of garden the hues with 

 which sun and sea proclaimed their everlasting 

 marriage in the twilight of yester even. In the 

 deep, passionate heart of these splendid flowers, 

 fragrant since they bloomed in Sappho s hand cen 

 turies ago, this sublime wedlock is annually cele 

 brated ; earth and sky meet arid commingle in this 

 miracle of color and sweetness, and when I carry 

 this lovely flower into my study all the poets fall 

 silent ; here is a depth of life, a radiant outcome 

 from the heart of mysteries, a hint of unimagined 

 beauty, such as they have never brought to me in 

 all their seeking. They have had their visions and 

 made them music ; they have caught faint echoes 

 of rushing seas and falling tides ; the shadows of 

 mountains have fallen upon them with low whisper 

 ings of unspeakable things hidden in the unexplored 

 recesses of their solitudes ; they have searched the 

 limitless arch of heaven when it was sown with 

 stars, and glittered like &quot; an archangel full pano 

 plied against a battle day&quot;; but in all their quest 

 the sublime unity of Nature, the fellowship of force 

 with force, of sea with sky, of moisture with light, 

 of form with color, has found at their hands no such 

 transcendent demonstration as this fragile rose, 

 which to-night brings from the great temple to this 

 little shrine the perfume and the royalty of obedi 

 ence to the highest laws, and reverence for the 

 divinest mysteries. Here sky and earth and sea 



