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. | 
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 ff 
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 
31 
