In Such Lonely Mornings I Have Watched The Owers Light Turning,
And I Have Counted Up My Gulf Of Time, And Wondered That Moments Could
Be So Stretched Out In The Clueless Mind.
I have prayed for the
morning or for a little draught of wind, and this I have thought, I
say, the extreme of absorption into emptiness and longing.
But now, on this ridge, dragging myself on to the main road, I found a
deeper abyss of isolation and despairing fatigue than I had ever
known, and I came near to turning eastward and imploring the hastening
of light, as men pray continually without reason for things that can
but come in a due order. I still went forward a little, because when I
sat down my loneliness oppressed me like a misfortune; and because my
feet, going painfully and slowly, yet gave a little balance and rhythm
to the movement of my mind.
I heard no sound of animals or birds. I passed several fields,
deserted in the half-darkness; and in some I felt the hay, but always
found it wringing wet with dew, nor could I discover a good shelter
from the wind that blew off the upper snow of the summits. For a
little space of time there fell upon me, as I crept along the road,
that shadow of sleep which numbs the mind, but it could not compel me
to lie down, and I accepted it only as a partial and beneficent
oblivion which covered my desolation and suffering as a thin,
transparent cloud may cover an evil moon.
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