How this waste shames us since men and women have eyes for 

 seeing! They are not blind. It were a mercy if one did not see that 

 he were blind, because the blind are not blameworthy for their lack of 

 sight. Deserts are flowerless; but this habitable world is a tangle of 

 beauties, like the interlacing of the sunshine and the shadows in a sum- 

 mer wood when sunlight rules the sky. A world full of loveliness, and 

 we see it not! That sounds a requiem. "Having eyes, see not," is our 

 pathos. That word haunts me as mourners haunt the grave of their 

 dear dead. May not a prophet's prayer for his servant be a prayer 

 uttered in our behalf as well? "I pray thee, open the young man's eyes 

 that he may see." So many dusks and dawns nobody watches. I 

 resent people running mad over carnivals and slighting the pageants of 

 the morning and the 

 night, worth a pil- 

 grimage about our 

 world to catch sight 

 of once. One sunset 

 in a decade; how 

 thronged the way 

 would be that led to 

 its mountain ! One in 

 a week; who watches? 

 Pity the blind who, having eyes, see not. Edward Rowland Sill tells a 

 benignant angel standing near, 



"This is our earth most friendly earth and fair;" 



and he was right. His praise was scant, not profuse. 



A mercy to the heart is the ubiquity of this loveliness. Some beauty 

 abides everywhere. Deserts are 'flowerless; but night and moonlight on 

 the far-stretching sands are so beautiful as fairly to stoop beneath their 

 load. Beauty blooms unseen in shaded woodlands; in corn-rows; in field 

 corners; on barbed wires, where wild vines tangle and blur the green of 

 leaves with the surprise of flowers; on garbage heaps; among cinders; 

 on rocky ledges; in quiet pools as lilies; in quiet skies as stars; purpling 

 the hollows in remote mountains, and making the far hills blue as the far 

 sea; voyaging as clouds; stationary as trees; wandering as a child with 

 tangled hair and laughing face; vines visible, drooping over tumbling 

 sheds or modest cottage or on stake-and-rider fences, shading windows 

 of poverty; thrilling mornings with singing and soaring larks, and in 



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