has seen a multitude of desires come and go Rosa 

 like shadows, has been troubled with many Mystica. 

 longings and baffled wings of the veiled pas- 

 sions of the soul, and has known dreams, many 

 dreams, dreams as the uncounted sand, the 

 myriad wave, the illimitable host of cloud, rain 

 that none hath numbered. The Symbol of 

 the Lily has been the chalice of the world's 

 tears ; the symbol of the Rose, the passion of 

 uplifted hearts and of hearts on fire ; in the 

 symbol of the Cross has dwelled, like fragrance 

 in a flower, the human Soul. The salt, mutable, 

 and yet unchanging sea has been the phantom 

 in which empires have seen Time like a shadow, 

 the mirage by which kings have wept and 

 nations been amorous in a great pride. The 

 Wind, that no man has seen, on whose rushing 

 mane no hand has been laid, and in whose 

 mouth has been set no bridle since the world 

 swung out of chaos on chariots of flame, . . . 

 has not that solitary and dread creature of the 

 deeps been fashioned in our minds to an image 

 of the Everlasting, and in our hearts been 

 shaped to the semblance of a Spirit ? 



A rose, laid on a stone-altar in the sunfire, 

 and thrown into the sea, with strange hymns, 

 with supplication . . . what a symbol this of 

 the desires that do not die with nations, the 

 longings that outlive peoples, the grass of 



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