I stand on the summit hatless, the
wind in my hair, the smack of salt on my cheek, all round me
rolling stretches of cloud-shadowed down, no sound but the shrill
mourn of the peewit and the gathering of the sea.
The hours pass, the shadows lengthen, the sheep-bells clang; and I
lie in my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to and fro
of the sea, and AEolus shepherding his white sheep across the blue.
I love the sea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and
undertow, and rasp of shingle sucked anew. I love it for its
secret dead in the Caverns of Peace, of which account must be given
when the books are opened and earth and heaven have fled away. Yet
in my love there is a paradox, for as I watch the restless,
ineffective waves I think of the measureless, reflective depths of
the still and silent Sea of Glass, of the dead, small and great,
rich or poor, with the works which follow them, and of the Voice as
the voice of many waters, when the multitude of one mind rends
heaven with alleluia: and I lie so still that I almost feel the
kiss of White Peace on my mouth. Later still, when the flare of
the sinking sun has died away and the stars rise out of a veil of
purple cloud, I take my way home, down the slopes, through the
hamlet, and across miles of sleeping fields; over which night has
thrown her shifting web of mist--home to the little attic, the
deep, cool well, the kindly wrinkled face with its listening eyes--
peace in my heart and thankfulness for the rhythm of the road.
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