Noble Souls, Through Dust And Heat, Rise

The Helicon Of Too Many Poets Is Not A Hill Crowned With Sunshine And Visited By The Muses And The Graces, But An Old, Mouldering House, Full Of Gloom And Haunted By Ghosts.

How Absolute And Omnipotent Is The Silence Of Night! And Yet The Stillness Seems Almost Audible! From All The Measureless Depths Of Air Around Us Comes A Half-sound, A Half-whisper, As If We Could Hear The Crumbling And Falling Away Of Earth And All Created Things, In The Great Miracle Of Nature, Decay And Reproduction, Ever Beginning, Never Ending,--the Gradual Lapse And Running Of The Sand In The Great Hour-glass Of Time.

After A Day Of Cloud And Wind And Rain Sometimes The Setting Sun Breaks Out Again, And Touching All The Darksome Woods With Light, Smiles On The Fields Until They Laugh And Sing, Then Like A Ruby From The Horizon's Ring, Drops Down Into The Night.

The Trees Are White With Dust, That O'er Their Sleep Wave Their Broad Curtains In The South-wind's Breath, While Underneath Such Leafy Tents They Keep The Long, Mysterious Exodus Of Death.

Three Silences There Are: The First Of Speech, The Second Of Desire, The Third Of Thought.