the shadows at their feet hide themselves 

 from the moon, moving noiselessly through 

 all the summer night. The woods in the 

 distance stand motionless in the wealth of 

 their massed foliage, keeping guard over 

 the unbroken silence that reigns in all their 

 branching aisles. Beyond the far-spreading 

 waters lie white and dreamlike, and tempt 

 the thought to the fairylands that sleep just 

 beyond the line of the horizon. A sweet 

 and restful mystery, like a bridal veil, hides 

 the face of Nature, and he only can venture 

 to lift it who has won the privilege by long 

 and faithful devotion. 



If the night be starlit the shadows are 

 denser, the outlook narrower, the mystery 

 deeper; but what a vision overhangs the 

 world and makes the night sublime with 

 the poetry of God's thought visible to all 

 eyes ! Who does not feel the passage of 

 divine dreams over his troubled life when 

 the infinite meadows of heaven are suddenly 

 abloom with light ? On such a night im- 

 mortality is written on earth and sky ; in 

 the silence and darkness there is no hint of 

 62 









