Chapter VII 



THE MYSTERY OF NIGHT 



VERY day two worlds 

 lie at my door and in- 

 vite me into mysteries 

 as far apart as darkness 

 and light. These two 

 realms have nothing in 

 common save a certain 

 identity of form ; colour, relation, distance, 

 are lost or utterly changed. In the vast 

 fields of heaven a still more complete and 

 sublime transformation is wrought. It is 

 a new hemisphere which hangs above me, 

 with countless fires lighting the awful high- 

 ways of the universe, and guiding the 

 daring and reverent thought as it falters 

 in the highest empyrean. The mind that 

 has come into fellowship with Nature is 

 subtly moved and penetrated by the decline 

 of light and the oncoming of darkness. 

 As the sun is replaced by the stars, so is 

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