Flower of the Dusk

The pines, darkly purple, towered against the sunset. Behind the hills, the splendidtapestry glowed and flamed, sending far messages of light to the grey East, where lay thesea, crooning itself to sleep. Bare boughs dripped rain upon the sodden earth, where thedead leaves had so long been hidden by the snow. The thousand sounds and scents ofSpring at last had waked the world. The man who stood near the edge of the cliff, quite alone, and carefully feeling theground before him with his cane, had chosen to face the valley and dream of the glory that, perchance, trailed down in living light from some vast loom of God's. His massive head wasthrown back, as though he listened, with a secret sense, for music denied to those who see. He took off his hat and stray gleams came through the deepening shadows to rest, likean aureole, upon his silvered hair. Remembered sunsets, from beyond the darkness of morethan twenty years, came back to him with divine beauty and diviner joy. Mnemosyne, thatguardian angel of the soul, brought from her treasure-house gifts of laughter and tears; thelaughter sweet with singing, and the bitterness of the tears eternally lost in the Water ofForgetfulness