“Yea, as I’ve often seen them; some like alabaster thrones, and others like ships on fire, while others are like silver castles, banded with cornelian and gold, with here and there hyacinthian shields hung on their battlements, all fresh as the stones in heaven’s foundation walls! How they career and float along the empurpled ocean of the west! I forget myself even now into their midst. Oh, knight, such pictures, such visions make my soul shout in peals of holy laughter.” “My Israel, the sun which woos the earth into making love to him with flowers never sets in thy brain; thou livest in the poet’s constant noon.” “But we both are changing. Even the knight gets mellow. Hardship, the sun and faith are working in us both for good.” “Getting to be? No; thou wert and art poet, painter and singer; all in one. If the world does not hear thee the Seraphim will, by and by.” “I’ve noticed that souls unbent from some long, twisting pain, run, aspire and play. It is mercy’s rest, reward.” “God fits some especially to catch passing joys, Ichabod.” “Yea, and it all comes from a serene faith that all is very good as He made it. I’m just opening to the Sun Eternal, at whose right hand are pleasures evermore. I love thy wakening touch, my guide.” “Ah, I’m a bungling player on the harp of thy soul, but I love thy melody. Child of nature, speak more and more to me.” “I can but ill tell all. I’m dumb amid the waves of peace which enhalo, the hopes that thrill, the views of truth that fill my being.” “I believe thee on my soul, Jew. I’d stop now to remember a little, perhaps to sleep, since so I can follow dreams that would craze me to contemplate awake; but if we now sleep, pray God our day-dreams go on and on. I think we are pilgrims following spiritual truths. They’ll lead us on high; let’s not miss their direction.” “One may sleep, master, when he can not think; for me, now, I’d rather court, awake, my mind’s guests, for a time, meanwhile gainsaying the lullabys of cricket and nightingale now floating out from every bush.” “So be it. How shall we proceed to pass the time?” “Can we set up an Ebenezer? God hitherto hath helped us.” “I have it; we’ll to the feast.” “Well, we have what some great kings have not, and so shall find joy in a feast. We have appetite!” “Thou dost miss my meaning, though thy point is prime. We seldom think to thank the Giver for the power to enjoy as well as for the enjoyable. I knew a French prince, once, who said he’d give his birthright for one good dinner, and he was no Esau, either. He had dinners and dinners, but what were they along with premature decay gnawing at his vitals like a rat, while he himself could eat less than a babe?” “I see; the knight would have us thankfully commemorate to-day’s enjoyment of nature.” “Just so; I think, in loving nature, because we begin to understand her, we will be on our way to all the natural joy of which she is God’s interpreter.” “But our feast?”