The hills stand out in line against the yellow sunset, with snow in the hollows of their sides: in front stretch green undulating meadows, with trees and the sound of water, and smoke from cottage chimneys.

O cry aloud over the earth for the children of men, of immortal destinies!

* * * * *

The young farmer in gaiters and thick boots walks miles over the hills to see his sister at the lunatic asylum. In the visitor’s room calm in neat attire she meets him; they are near the same age. Thankful, with tears, suffused, reading each other’s eyes they sit together hand in hand.

Strange cobwebs cross and cross and cloud her face and mind, yet within her star-like burns her changeless love for him.

Praying, talking continually of the visions before them, pacing silent and mechanical up and down the ward, with disheveled hair, with narrow oblique eyes of suspicion, with animal postures and cries and chatterings and heavy stunned looks, the poor broken images and wasters of Humanity wait their time.

* * * * *

Now at evening from the meadows and the cottages and the familiar water-sides exhale tender regrets and memories—compunctions of partings long past, and faces seen and voices heard no more.

With the odors of evening they arise—from the breast of mortal men and women exhaled.

By the door thou standest wondering tenderly of him or her who is gone; presently the doorway shall be empty of thy form, and another shall stand there wondering of thee.

As thou after thy mother, so she wondered to know of hers, and her mother again of her who gave her birth;

By chains of tender memory and love encircling the earth are the children bound to each other—there is not one that escapes.

Whither is the resort of them that pass, and where do the uncounted generations abide?

In what hollow do they dwell and what valley do they inhabit?—where do they sleep their invisible sleep, and does the light of the sun awaken them?

Of what they meditated on earth do they dream, and on us do they look with eyes innumerable as the stars?