those forms of radiant and vanishing beauty 

 with which the unseen life of Nature crowns 

 the years in endless and inexhaustible pro- 

 fusion. As it budded and opened into full 

 flower in the garden, how complete it 

 seemed in itself, and how isolated from all 

 other visible things! But in reality how 

 dependent it was, how entirely the creation 

 of forces as far apart as earth and sky! 

 The great tide from the Unseen cast it for 

 a moment into my possession ; for an hour 

 it has filled a human home with its far- 

 brought sweetness; to-morrow it will fall 

 apart and return whence it came. As I 

 look into its heart of passionate colour, 

 the whole visible universe, that seems so 

 fixed and stable, becomes immaterial, evan- 

 escent, vanishing; it is no longer a per- 

 manent order of seas and continents and 

 rounded skies ; it is a vision painted by an 

 unseen hand against a background of mys- 

 tery. Dead, cold, unchangeable as I see 

 it in the glimpses of a single hour, it be- 

 comes warm, vital, forever changing as I 

 gaze upon it from the outlook of the cen- 

 55 





I 



/ If, 



,., ...4 W-i 1 



