UNDER an arch of glorious leaves I passed

Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon

Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.

It was the quiet hour before the sun

Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently

Utters his benediction on the waves

That whisper round the death-bed of the day.

The labourers were returning from the farms

And children danced to meet them. From the doors

Of cottages there came a pleasant clink

Where busy hands laid out the evening meal.

From smouldering elms around the village spire

There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks.

The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale

The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh.

The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace,

And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar,

And fragrant grasses, murmuring a prayer,Bowed all together to the holy west,

Bowed all together thro' the golden hush,

The breathing hush, the solemn scented hush,

The holy, holy hush of eventide.

And, in among the ferns that crowned the hill

With waving green and whispers of the wind,

A boy and girl, carelessly linking hands,

Into their golden dream drifted away.

On that rich afternoon of scent and song

Old Michael Oaktree died. It was not much

He wished for; but indeed I think he longed

To see the light of summer once again

Blossoming o'er the far blue hills. I know

He used to like his rough-hewn wooden bench

Placed in the sun outside the cottage door

Where in the listening stillness he could hear,

Across the waving gilly-flowers that crowned

His crumbling garden wall, the long low sigh

Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills

The sacred consolation of the sea.

He did not hope for much: he longed to live

Until the winter came again, he said;

But on the last sweet eve of May he died.I wandered sadly through the dreaming lanes

Down to the cottage on that afternoon;

For I had known old Michael Oaktree now

So many years, so many happy years.

When I was little he had carried me

High on his back to see the harvest home,

And given me many a ride upon his wagon

Among the dusty scents of sun and hay.

He showed me how to snare the bulky trout

That lurked under the bank of yonder brook.

Indeed, he taught me many a country craft,

For I was apt to learn, and, as I learnt,

I loved the teacher of that homely lore.

Deep in my boyish heart he shared the glad

Influence of the suns and winds and waves,

Giving my childhood what it hungered for—

The rude earth-wisdom of the primal man.

He had retained his childhood: Death for him

Had no more terror than his bed. He walked

With wind and sunlight like a brother, glad

Of their companionship and mutual aid.

We, toilers after truth, are weaned too soon

From earth's dark arms and naked barbarous breast.Too soon, too soon, we leave the golden feast,

Fetter the dancing limbs and pluck the crown

Of roses from the dreaming brow. We pass

Our lives in most laborious idleness.

For we have lost the meaning of the world;

We have gone out into the night too soon;

We have mistaken all the means of grace

And over-rated our small power to learn.

And the years move so swiftly over us:

We have so little time to live in worlds

Unrealised and unknown realms of joy,

We are so old before we learn how vain

Our effort was, how fruitlessly we cast

Our Bread upon the waters, and how weak

Our hearts were, but our chance desires how strong!

Then, in the dark, our sense of light decays;

We cannot cry to God as once we cried!

Lost in the gloom, our faith, perhaps our love,

Lies dead with years that never can return.

But Michael Oaktree was a man whose love

Had never waned through all his eighty years.

His faith was hardly faith. He seemed a partOf all that he believed in. He had lived

In constant conversation with the sun,

The wind, the silence and the heart of peace;

In absolute communion with the Power

That rules all action and all tides of thought,

And all the secret courses of the stars;

The Power that still establishes on earth

Desire and worship, through the radiant laws

Of Duty, Love and Beauty; for through these

As through three portals of the self-same gate

The soul of man attains infinity,

And enters into Godhead. So he gained

On earth a fore-taste of Nirvana, not

The void of eastern dream, but the desire

And goal of all of us, whether thro' lives

Innumerable, by slow degrees, we near

The death divine, or from this breaking body

Of earthly death we flash at once to God.

Through simple love and simple faith, this man

Attained a height above the hope of kings.

Yet, as I softly shut the little gate

And walked across the garden, all the scents

Of mingling blossom ached like inmost painDeep in my heart, I know not why. They seemed

Distinct, distinct as distant evening bells

Tolling, over the sea, a secret chime

That breaks and breaks and breaks upon the heart

In sorrow rather than in sound, a chime

Strange as a streak of sunset to the moon,

Strange as a rose upon a starlit grave,

Strange as a smile upon a dead man's lips;

A chime of melancholy, mute as death

But strong as love, uttered in plangent tones

Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers,

Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves,

Lilac and lilies to the rose-wreathed porch.

At last I tapped and entered and was drawn

Into the bedroom of the dying man,

Who lay, propped up with pillows, quietly

Gazing; for through his open casement far

Beyond the whispers of the gilly-flowers

He saw the mellow light of eventide

Hallow the west once more; and, as he gazed,

I think I never saw so great a peace

On any human face. There was no sound

Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock,The whisper of the garden and, far off,

The sacred consolation of the sea.

His wife sat at his bed-side: she had passed

Her eightieth year; her only child was dead.

She had been wedded more than sixty years,

And she sat gazing with the man she loved

Quietly, out into that unknown Deep.

A butterfly floated into the room

And back again, pausing awhile to bask

And wink its painted fans on the warm sill;

A bird piped in the roses and there came

Into the childless mother's ears a sound

Of happy laughing children, far away.

Then Michael Oaktree took his wife's thin hand

Between his big rough hands. His eyes grew dark,

And, as he turned to her and died, he spoke

Two words of perfect faith and love—Come soon!

O then in all the world there was no sound

Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock,

The whisper of the leaves and far away,

The infinite compassion of the sea.But, as I softly passed out of the porch

And walked across the garden, all the scents

Of mingling blossoms ached like inmost joy,

Distinct no more, but like one heavenly choir

Pealing one mystic music, still and strange

As voices of the holy Seraphim,

One voice of adoration, mute as love,

Stronger than death, and pure with wedded tones

Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers,

Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves,

Lilac and lilies to the garden gate.

O then indeed I knew how closely knit

To stars and flowers we are, how many means

Of grace there are for those that never lose

Their sense of membership in this divine

Body of God; for those that all their days

Have walked in quiet communion with the Life

That keeps the common secret of the sun,

The wind, the silence and the heart of man.

There is one God, one Love, one everlasting

Mystery of Incarnation, one creative

Passion behind the many-coloured veil.We have obscured God's face with partial truths,

The cause of all our sorrow and sin, our wars

Of force and thought, in this unheavened world.

Yet, by the battle of our partial truths,

The past against the present and the swift

Moment of passing joy against the deep

Eternal love, ever the weaker truth

Falls to the stronger, till once more we near

The enfolding splendour of the whole. Our God

Has been too long a partial God. We are all

Made in His image, men and birds and beasts,

Mountains and clouds and cataracts and suns,

With those great Beings above our little world,

A height beyond for every depth below,

Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,

Existences that live and move in realms

As far beyond our thought as Europe lies

With all its little arts and sciences

Beyond the comprehension of the worm.

We are all partial images, we need

What lies beyond us to complete our souls;

Therefore our souls are filled with a desire

And love which lead us towards the Infinity

Of Godhead that awaits us each and all.Peacefully through the dreaming lanes I went.

The sun sank, and the birds were hushed. The stars

Trembled like blossoms in the purple trees.

But, as I paused upon the whispering hill

The mellow light still lingered in the west,

And dark and soft against that rosy depth

A boy and girl stood knee-deep in the ferns.

Dreams of the dead man's youth were in my heart,

Yet I was very glad; and as the moon

Brightened, they kissed; and, linking hand in hand,

Down to their lamp-lit home drifted away.

Under an arch of leaves, into the gloom

I went along the little woodland road,

And through the breathless hedge of hawthorn heard

Out of the deepening night, the long low sigh

Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills

The sacrament and sabbath of the sea.