THE SECRET OF THE DAY 7 



hates Death with all his small heart, no matter what 

 stroke of the angel challenges him. 



Keats saw that magic hour under the moon ; 

 Browning, at eventide. The first poet touches such 

 a supreme moment when he tells how : 



"Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, 

 Dream, and so dream all night without a stir. 

 Save from one gradual, solitary gust, 

 Which comes upon the silence, and dies off 

 As if the ebbing air had but one wave." 



There is no more that word of man can say, for 

 at such a time the visible world passes clean out of 

 comprehension, enters upon a conjuncture or crisis, 

 for which our langruao-e has no words. 



Thus Browning sings : 



" This eve's the time, 

 This eve intense with yon first trembling star 

 We seem to pant and reach ; scarce aught between 

 The earth that rises and the heaven that bends ; 

 All Nature self-abandoned, every tree 

 Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts. 

 And fixed so, every flower and every weed, 

 No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat ; 

 All under God, each measured by itself." 



Truly, all who live much for choice with the trees 

 have seen them thus. It may be that they stand 

 beneath strange phases of light, or upon the skirts 

 of storm ; it may be that they are sunk behind 

 the dancing hazes of noon ; it may be they lie 

 under frost and starlight, themselves refined into 

 a dim phantasm against the snow ; or it may be 



