august 4, 1895.

the dawn

just another picture lingers with me, for no very defined reason. it was an august night; i had gone to rest with the wind sighing and buffeting against my windows, but when i awoke with a start, deep in the night, roused, it seemed, as by footsteps in the air and a sudden hollow calling of airy voices, it was utterly still outside. i drew aside my heavy tapestry curtain, and lo! it was the dawn. a faint upward gush of lemon-coloured light edged the eastern hills. the air as i threw the casement wide was unutterably sweet and cool. in the faint light, over the roof of the great barn, i saw what i had seen a hundred times before, a quiet wood-end, upon which the climbing hedges converge. but now it seemed to lie there in a pure and silent dream, sleeping a light sleep, waiting contentedly for the dawn and smiling softly to itself. over the fields lay little wreaths of mist, and beyond the wood, hills of faintest blue, the hills[198] of dreamland, where it seems as if no harsh wind could blow or cold rain fall. i felt as though i stood to watch the stainless slumber of one i loved, and was permitted by some happy and holy chance to see for once the unuttered peace that earth enjoys in her lonely and unwatched hours. too often, alas! one carries into the fairest scenes a turmoil of spirit, a clouded mind that breaks and mars the spell. but here it was not so; i gazed upon the hushed eyes of the earth, and heard her sleeping breath; and, as the height of blessing, i seemed myself to have left for a moment the past behind, to have no overshadowing from the future, but to live only in the inviolate moment, clear-eyed and clean-hearted, to see the earth in her holiest and most secluded sanctuary, unsuspicious and untroubled, bathed in the light and careless slumber of eternal youth, in that delicious oblivion that fences day from weary day.

in the jaded morning light the glory was faded, and the little wood wore its usual workaday look, the face it bears before the world; but i, i had seen it in its golden dreams; i knew its secret, and it could not deceive me; it had yielded to me unawares its sublimest confidence,[199] and however it might masquerade as a commonplace wood, a covert for game, a commercial item in an estate-book, known by some homely name, i had seen it once undisguised, and knew it as one of the porches of heaven.