The gates of Heaven are pearls, and stand four-square, And people enter in from everywhere. But when the heather’s on the ben And the wind races down the glen And in the wake of Highland ships The creaking sea-gull wheels and dips, And on the bogs, the hills below, The cotton-grass and myrtle blow— Bog-myrtle, with the spicy breath Of bitter-sweet and life and death— I’m glad to think that God has heard The meaning of the unspoken word, The stammering whisper of a tongue That learned no speech the hills among, The supplication of a hand Too fierce for men to understand, And that for such as me He’ll wait In silence by His northern gate. [_The shadow falls across the girl’s face, and she stirs and smiles in her sleep, and a dream-shadow goes from her also, singing. The two shadows meet, and passing into each other, become one._] GIRL’S DREAM I love to think that, high in Heaven, Above the stars, the planets seven, Daybreak and darkness—if I’m there!— I’ll feel the wind stir in my hair, And Heaven’s steadfast floor will float Like water underneath a boat, And, looking down across the gold I’ll see the sunset, fold on fold, Go tumbling down the sky’s wild screes Beyond the Outer Hebrides. Then something in my heart will stir Like earth when spring remembers her, And I’ll ask, firm but quite polite, If God will set my compass right, And if He’ll aiblins help to bail My old boat with the tattered sail, And lend a hand to launch her clear Of Heaven, unless there’s sea like here. [_The blended shadow falls across the face of the Big Young Hero, and he looks up._] SHADOW [_Stirring restlessly._] I need something. HERO Who touches me? SHADOW The shadow of a desire. HERO What do you require? SHADOW I don’t know. HERO I have sent you a dream. SHADOW I will no longer go After a dream. I do not want to be a bore, But I seem Nowadays to need something more; I feel That I have need of something real. [_The girl stirs, and gives a little sigh._] HERO Hush! if you talk so loud you’ll waken her Before she’s ready. She needs her rest just now. She mustn’t stir; She’s got to steady Her head a bit, for she’s spent hours Filling her mind with things like flowers, Till she had sucked out of earth’s genial root My name like a tender shoot That was bound to put her in mind Of something unconfined. SHADOW