THE STAR OF REST 



A FRAGMENT 



Rest — what an oceanic word ! I have been 

 thinking of this unfathomable, unpenetrable 

 word with mingled longing, and wonder, and 

 even awe. 



What depths are in it, what infinite spaces, 

 what vast compassionate sky, what tenderness 

 of oblivion, what husht awakenings, what 

 quiet sinkings and fadings into peace. 



Waking early, I took the word as one 

 might take a carrier-dove and loosed it into 

 the cloudy suspense of the stilled mind — and 

 it rose again and again in symbolic cloud- 

 thought, now as an infinite green forest 

 murmurous with a hidden wind, now in 

 some other guise and once as Ecstasy herself, 

 listening. 



349 



