Then again for a long time he lay with heaving bosom, Helen
whispering to him pleadingly, “David, David!” As he opened his eyes,
the girl saw a wonderful look upon his face; and at last he began
speaking, in a low, shaking voice, and pausing often to catch his
breath: “Oh, Helen,” he said, “it is all gone, but I won, and my
life's prayer has not been for nothing! I was never so lost, so
beaten; but all the time there was a voice in my soul that cried to
me to fight,--that there was glory enough in God's home for even me!
And oh, to-night it came--it came!”
David sank back, and there was a long silence before he went on: “It
was wonderful, Helen,” he whispered, “there has come nothing like it
to me in all my life; for I had never drunk such sorrow before,
never known such fearful need. It seems as if all the pent-up forces
of my nature broke loose in one wild, fearful surge, as if there was
a force behind me like a mighty, driving storm, that swept me on and
away, beyond self and beyond time, and out into the life of things.
It was like the surging of fierce music, it was the great ocean of
the infinite bursting its way into my heart. And it bore me on, so
that I was mad with it, so that I knew not where I was, only that I
was panting for breath, and that I could bear it no more and cried
out in pain!”
David as he spoke had been lifting himself, the memory of his vision
taking hold of him once more; but then he sank down again and
whispered, “Oh, I have no more strength, I can do no more; but it
was God, and I am free!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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