90 



THE OPAL SEA 



Moonlight 

 on the sea. 



The 



Angelua 

 hour. 



utes seeing new tones and lights emerge and 

 shift, change and disappear; and in its death 

 throes — when it slowly fades before the night 

 shadow creeping up the eastern sky, when the 

 lilacs of the horizon turn pale gray and the 

 azure of the sky becomes a cobalt — it is still 

 beautiful as a shield of blue-steel lying there 

 in the twilight. 



Perhaps at this very time and before the 

 twilight has passed, the oval-shaped moon 

 comes up over the eastern sea, lighting the 

 sky anew with silvery opalescence, and min- 

 gling its soft luster with the fading glory of 

 the west. The light now comes from two 

 sources and both of them pale reflections of 

 the sun itself. How supremely beautiful it is 

 in its soft glow, how wonderful in the coloring 

 it creates — this most poetic light ever seen on 

 land or sea ! And how impressive it makes the 

 Angelus hour — the hour of prayer when the 

 tired world bends the knee and rests a moment 

 lost in the beauty of the upper sky! 



"Ave Maria! O'er the earth and sea 

 That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee." 



IIow many hearts have overflowed in utterance, 

 how many vows have been made, how many 

 faiths have been pledged, under the spell of 



