22 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



only dimly lighted their chalky towers and spires rise out 

 of the sweet mist and sing together beside the waters. 



The earth lies blinking, turning over languidly and 

 talking like a half-awakened child that now and then 

 lies still and sleeps though with eyes wide open. The 

 air is still full of the dreams of a night which this mild 

 sun cannot dispel. The dreams are prophetic as well as 

 reminiscent, and are visiting the woods, and that is why 

 they will not cast aside the veil. Who would rise if he 

 could continue to dream ? 



It is not spring yet. Spring is being dreamed, and the 

 dream is more wonderful and more blessed than ever was 

 spring. What the hour of waking will bring forth is not 

 known. Catch at the dreams as they hover in the warm 

 thick air. Up against the grey tiers of beech stems and 

 the mist of the buds and fallen leaves rise two columns 

 of blue smoke from two white cottages among trees; 

 they rise perfectly straight and then expand into a 

 balanced cloud, and thus make and unmake continually 

 two trees of smoke. No sound comes from the cottages. 

 The dreams are over them, over the brows of the children 

 and the babes, of the men and the women, bringing great 

 gifts, suggestions, shadowy satisfactions, consolations, 

 hopes. With inward voices of persuasion those dreams 

 hover and say that all is to be made new, that all is 

 yet before us, and the lots are not yet drawn out of 

 the urn. 



We shall presently set out and sail into the undiscovered 

 seas and find new islands of the free, the beautiful, the 

 young. As is the dimly glimmering changeless brook 

 twittering over the pebbles, so is life. It is but just leaving 



