DOWN a
country road, I walked in a reverie, one April Sabbath afternoon. I seemed to be in a strange land, and pictures and fancies of Maiano and the Tyrol were floating in my brain; yet I was unconsciously moving, like a
star, in the old, old orbit, whence I had never strayed, within brief distance of the spot where I was born, and where for years my life had worked itself into so dear a
, that the desire of journeying gladly elsewhere, save in the spirit, had become a sort of treason. The air was
with the moist delicious
of early spring, which comes as yet from nothing but the ground, as if the
showers had stirred and
the very clods and roots and buried fragments of leaves into something like hope and
. This is the advent-time of Nature, far more
and suggestive than the
beauty whereof it is the fore-runner. As I ventured
, wrapped in
thought, and resolved, as it were, into the sweet indolent joy of living, I stooped to pick up a branch, silvered with thick buds, which the wind had blown across my path. At that moment, distracted from the invisible world, and in the transition-state between dreaming and alert attention, I was
with a strain of
music, such as one can conceive of as floating ever in Jeremy Taylor's "blessed country, where an enemy never entered, and whence a friend never went away." I raised my head to listen, and immediately perceived ahead of me, back from the highway, and embowered in trees, a gray church porch, out of which were
the interlacing harmonies which had charmed my wandering ear. The door stood open, and no idlers were in sight; no late wheel-marks were betrayed on the soft, fine dust of the road. Yet by the many-colored sunlight, filtered through the
windows of the
, I saw that a number of people were gathered together in the cool and quiet
. A single glance showed me that the interior was of extreme beauty, and of
that
and airiness of design most unlikely to be coupled with massive
walls. Yet there it was, impregnably grim without, peaceful and assuring within, like a
heroic heart beating under armor. From it, and about it, and through it, floated the siren voices of my search. In an illusion-loving mood, I sought not to pluck out the heart of my mystery, nor to rob it of its soft promise by vain questionings. I slipped into a
seat in the shadow of the choir-stairs, and gave myself up to this sole delight: as to prayers and sermons, either they were already over, or else they went past in the
of melody, as the swallows by the window above me, beating their shining way upward,
without my knowledge or furtherance.
I heard, above the rest, and sometimes
twined only with each other, a brave, jubilant voice, and a voice
and tender. Neither know I which was the fairer, so ministrant were both, so helpful and unfailing. The soft, starlit voice might touch an over-eager soul with calm; to the soul
, the strong voice would come like a great noon-tide wind,
it towards the height where the sun dwelt, and all the fountains of the day. Clear as thought was the bright voice, striving,
, and instinct with truth; but like the first sigh of passion was the sad voice, thrilling, too, with memories of yesterdays that cannot return forever; fond, sensitive,
to the deep
of the heart, where there is search after hidden meanings, and mourning over the inscrutable laws through which not even Love's anointed eyes can see. I recognized the battle-call, the rush of the wings of the morning, the pæan of young ambition in the victor-voice, whose very petition was a conquest, in the
faith and strength of its asking; but the lowly voice sang with unspeakable
, in whose every plea the greater grief of
was already
. A grateful spirit would fain
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