24 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



grey-complexioned, in old black hat, black clothes, crouch- 

 ing over a paper bag of fragments, in the beautiful August 

 rain after heat. But this is her hour. That future is 

 not among the dreams in the air to-day. She is at one 

 with the world, and a deep music grows between her and 

 the stars. Her smile is one of those magical things, 

 great and small and all divine, that have the power to 

 wield universal harmonies. At sight or sound of them 

 the infinite variety of appearances in the world is made 

 fairer than before, because it is shown to be a many- 

 coloured raiment of the one. The raiment trembles, and 

 under leaf and cloud and air a window is thrown open 

 upon the unfathomable deep, and at the window we are 

 sitting, watching the flight of our souls away, away to 

 where they must be gathered into the music that is being 

 built. Often upon the vast and silent twilight, as now, 

 is the soul poured out as a rivulet into the sea and lost, not 

 able even to stain the boundless crystal of the air; and the 

 body stands empty, waiting for its return, and, poor thing, 

 knows not what it receives back into itself when the night 

 is dark and it moves away. For we stand ever at the 

 edge of Eternity and fall in many times before we die. 

 Yet even such thoughts live not long this day. All shall 

 be healed, says the dream. All shall be made new. The 

 day is a fairy birth, a foundling not fathered nor mothered 

 by any grey yesterdays. It has inherited nothing. It 

 makes of winter and of the old springs that wrought 

 nothing fair a stale creed, a senseless tale : they are 

 naught : I do not wonder any longer if the lark's song 

 has grown old with the ears that hear it or if it be still 

 unchanged. 



