CHAPTER III
Once again I have paid a rare visit to my tree to find many things
changed since my last sojourn there. The bees are silent, for the
honey-laden flowers of the sycamore are gone and in their place
hang dainty two-fold keys. The poplar has lost its metallic
shimmer, the chestnut its tall white candles; and the sound of the
wind in the fully-leaved branches is like the sighing of the sea.
The martins' nests are finished, and one is occupied by a shrill-
voiced brood; but for the most part the birds' parental cares are
over, and the nestlings in bold flight no longer flutter on
inefficient wings across the lawn with clamorous, open bill. The
robins show promise of their ruddy vests, the slim young thrush is
diligently practising maturer notes, and soon Maid June will have
fled.
It is such a wonderful world that I cannot find it in my heart to
sigh for fresh beauty amid these glories of the Lord on which I
look, seeing men as trees walking, in my material impotence which
awaits the final anointing. The marigolds with their orange suns,
the lilies' white flame, the corncockle's blue crown of many
flowers, the honeysuckle's horn of fragrance--I can paraphrase
them, name, class, dissect them; and then, save for the purposes of
human intercourse, I stand where I stood before, my world bounded
by my capacity, the secret of colour and fragrance still kept. It
is difficult to believe that the second lesson will not be the
sequence of the first, and death prove a "feast of opening eyes" to
all these wonders, instead of the heavy-lidded slumber to which we
so often liken it.
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