I arise and pass.

* * * * *

In her tall-windowed sitting room—alone—

[The setting sun casts long shafts of light across the path and beneath the trees where knee-deep in grass a milkwhite calf is browsing,]

In her tall-windowed sitting room, with its antique pierglasses and profuse handsome ornaments—alone—

The old dowager sits.

Her silver-grey hair lies smooth under a lace cap; lace and silk are her dress, her thin fingers are well stocked with rings.

Lonely is the great house; her old life and the voices of children have long passed away. She goes to the window to pass the time and through the glass looks out upon the still landscape; after a while she turns and rings a bell—a tall young footman appears.

Her voice is quiet and gentle as she gives her order, and flexible still with intelligence; very taking with their old-fashioned refinement are her manners;

But in a moment what she requires is there, and she is alone again—everything is done for her.

Into her chair once more she resigns herself, to knit an antimacassar.

* * * * *

Without, how peaceful the scene!

The crisp sound of browsing, the liquid blue-violet eyes of the white calf, her budding horns, her sweet breath, her muscular tongue encircling the tufts of grass, the impatient sideway thrust of the head with which she tears them,

The fearlessness with which she gives her head to be caressed and hugged by the little girl just come down from the farm.

* * * * *

The sun withdraws his rays; the many shadows are merged in one;

The sweet odor of the white campion comes floating, and of the wild roses in neighboring hedgerows, and of the distant bean-fields;

Twilight comes, and dusk comes, and the height of the sky lifts and lifts;

The last of the long daylight fades:

Over the fields and by the hedgerows and along the sprawling suburban streets of London the last of the long daylight fades:

Over the roof of the high opera-house—late grey and ghostly in contrast with the myriad twinkling lamps below—by those within unthought of, it fades:

Where—amid a blaze of light and color, elate, to her full height drawn, tier upon tier of faces, thousands of eyes confronting, and saturated with the excitement of the moment, every vein in her beautiful body bounding—

The prima donna lifts clear and unfaltering in the finale her splendid voice,

And retires amid a storm of flowers.

* * * * *

The sower goes out to sow, alone in the morning, the early October morning so beautiful and calm.

The flanks of the clods are creeping with thin vapor, and the little copse alongside the field is full of white trailing veils of it;

While now like a flood the rising yellow sunlight pours in, among the brambles and under the square oak-boughs, and splashes through in great streaks of light over the ploughed land.

* * * * *

Beautiful is the morning. Alone over the field, to and fro, to and fro, with ample alternate hand-sweep he goes. At every step, right and left, the grain broadcast flies in a glittering shower.

With the Sun and the Earth for companions, with browned arms and face and dazzle-lidded eyes, thick-booted, untiring, all day the sower goes sowing—

What in due time shall become daily bread in the mouths of thousands.

* * * * *

The caravan has halted: it is the hour of prayer, the tents are already pitched;

On his carpet the old Sheikh kneels upright—his arms and eyes uplifted; above, the living blue breathless miracle bends—the sky!

The others are round him with their faces buried in the sand; the camels are tethered a few paces off.

His voice ascends. By the doors of the tents from the scanty fires just lighted three columns of smoke, perfectly straight, also ascend.

* * * * *

That is all. The smoke creeps upward and is lost continually in the blue; his voice who prays creeps upward and is lost.

Around spreads, silent, with loose stones and a few weeds, the desert; above, the sky.

The Sky!