There was again a kind of light, for the raven-clouds had gone by and
the swan-clouds were crossing; and the wind was now the magic piper who
drives away care, and with his merry music sets Nature capering. Searell
was on the pixy-path and the wind-flowers were jigging; it was ghostly,
but a dance, not a solemn marching as in autumn, when the leaves fall
processionally downwards. It was recessional spring, when the leaves
awoke, as it were, from their moon-loved sleep, preserved in unfading
youth and beauty by that sleep, and leapt back at the piper's music to
the branches, kissing their ancient oaks with the fervour of young love.
Every flower had a moist eye and a sweet heart; and the pixy-water rang
for festival.
One turn Searell made, seeing nothing, because his eyes struggled with
the mist; another, and he stopped. There was a wonder, a miracle, a
revelation among his wind-flowers, upon the edge of the rising water, a
sleeping silent wonder which made him thrill.
"It has no bodily existence. When I come back it will be gone."
It was still there, and now the water was almost level with the bed of
moss, and some of the flowers were struggling to keep their pale heads
above; and it was silent, this child of the morning, lying upon its back
in the moss, numbed, perhaps, though the night was not cold, and there
was a beauty upon the small face, not the beauty which makes for
violence, but that which gives peace, the beauty of innocence; and there
was also upon it that perfect weakness, and the submission of weakness
which is one of the strongest things created. And it seemed to be
growing there like the wind-flowers, as fragile, but as hardy, and among
them; for white anemones had been blown across each eye and across the
mouth, and they gleamed from each ear, and the chin was another edged
with pink, and all of them seemed to be jealous of the child.
"And it comes into the world by violence," Searell murmured.
Even then he hardly knew what had happened. He could not think, for his
mind was full of the wonder, and commonplace ideas would not enter. He
picked up the child reverently; there was no motion, no sound, no
opening of bue eyes; had there been a shrill scream, the spell might
have been broken--the contact was dreadful to him. He was tending a
sacred mystery, elevating a sacrament newly consecrated, something which
a few hours ago had been leaping like a spark in the place of his
dreams, and had been flung as lightning upon his path to strike his
heart open. Here was the answer of the flowers. To men the Creator was
as a child, for the child is the only thing all-powerful and the only
thing all-pure.
About the house Searell seemed to hear the sound of groaning like the
moan of the dying wind, and there were movements once or twice as of a
wounded body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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