1 82 UNDER THE TREES. 



vain is all human utterance ! The greatest of 

 poems, the sublime harmony in which all things are 

 folded, has never been spoken, and never will be. 

 No lyre in any human hand will ever make those 

 divine chords audible. The poets hear them, know 

 them, live by them ; but no verse contains them. 

 So much a part of that wondrous night were we that 

 any speech would have seemed like a severance of 

 things that were one ; all the deep meaning of the 

 hour was clear to us because we were included in it. 

 How long we sat in that silence I do not know ; we 

 had forgotten the world out of which we had 

 escaped, and the route by which we came ; we 

 knew only that an infinite sea of beauty and wonder 

 rippled on the beach at our feet, and that over us 

 the heavens were as a delicate veil, beyond which 

 diviner loveliness seemed waiting on the verge of 

 birth. 



It was Rosalind who spoke at last, and spoke in 

 words which flashed the human truth of the hour 

 into our thoughts. On this island we had found 

 ourselves ; so often lost, at times so long forgotten, 

 in the busy world that lay afar off. And then we 

 fell a-talking of the island and of all the kindred 

 places where men have found homes for their souls ; 

 sweet and fragrant retreats whence the noise of 

 strife and toil died into a faint murmur, or was lost 

 in some vast silence. At Milan, Prospero found the 

 cares of state so irksome, the joy of &quot; secret 

 studies &quot; so alluring, that, despairing of harmoniz- 



