Present makes, by wondrous prescience;
Proving the senses blind by being blind to sense."
"Yesterday, at dawn," says Hafiz, "God delivered me from all
worldly affliction; and amidst the gloom of night presented me
with the water of immortality."
In the life of Sadi by Dowlat Shah occurs this sentence: "The
eagle of the immaterial soul of Shaikh Sadi shook from his
plumage the dust of his body."
Thus thoughtfully we were rowing homeward to find some autumnal
work to do, and help on the revolution of the seasons. Perhaps
Nature would condescend to make use of us even without our
knowledge, as when we help to scatter her seeds in our walks, and
carry burrs and cockles on our clothes from field to field.
All things are current found
On earthly ground,
Spirits and elements
Have their descents.
Night and day, year on year,
High and low, far and near,
These are our own aspects,
These are our own regrets.
Ye gods of the shore,
Who abide evermore,
I see your far headland,
Stretching on either hand;
I hear the sweet evening sounds
From your undecaying grounds;
Cheat me no more with time,
Take me to your clime.
As it grew later in the afternoon, and we rowed leisurely up the
gentle stream, shut in between fragrant and blooming banks, where
we had first pitched our tent, and drew nearer to the fields
where our lives had passed, we seemed to detect the hues of our
native sky in the southwest horizon. The sun was just setting
behind the edge of a wooded hill, so rich a sunset as would never
have ended but for some reason unknown to men, and to be marked
with brighter colors than ordinary in the scroll of time. Though
the shadows of the hills were beginning to steal over the stream,
the whole river valley undulated with mild light, purer and more
memorable than the noon. For so day bids farewell even to
solitary vales uninhabited by man. Two herons, _Ardea herodias_,
with their long and slender limbs relieved against the sky, were
seen travelling high over our heads, - their lofty and silent
flight, as they were wending their way at evening, surely not to
alight in any marsh on the earth's surface, but, perchance, on
the other side of our atmosphere, a symbol for the ages to study,
whether impressed upon the sky, or sculptured amid the
hieroglyphics of Egypt. Bound to some northern meadow, they held
on their stately, stationary flight, like the storks in the
picture, and disappeared at length behind the clouds. Dense
flocks of blackbirds were winging their way along the river's
course, as if on a short evening pilgrimage to some shrine of
theirs, or to celebrate so fair a sunset.
