Part 23

Then we talked of that mysterious harmony from the beehives, and we saw at once that it has to do with Order, that Inertia was mastered there--that the spirit of wheat has mastered Inertia--so that there is a nobility, even about the golden husk. It occurred to us, of course, then, that all the aristocrats of Nature--rose and wheat and olives and bees and alabaster and grapes--must all have their part of the harmony, for Order has come to their chaos. Their spirit has come forth, as in the face of a far-come child--the brute earth-bound lines of self gone--the theme of life, Service.

I am at the end of Capitals now.

One afternoon we talked about corn--from the fields where the passionate mystic Ruth gleaned, to our own tasseled garden plot. And another day we found the ants enlarging the doors of their tunnels, to let out for the nuptial flight certain winged mistresses. There is something in everything.

Each of us sees it differently. Each of us can take what he sees, after all the rest have told their stories, and make a poem of that. The first wonder of man cannot be conceived until this is realised.

There is an inner correspondence in the awakened human soul for every movement and mystery of Nature. When the last resistance of Inertia is mastered, we shall see that there is no separateness anywhere, no detachment; that the infinite analogies all tell the same story--that the plan is one.

THE IRISH CHAPTER

There was a row of us preparing for sleep out under the stars--the Dakotan at one side, then two small boys, the little girl and the old man.... It was one of those nights in which we older ones decided to tell stories instead of writing them. We had talked long, like true Arabs around a fire on the beach. A South Wind came in and the Lake received and loved it. I asked the Dakotan what the Lake was saying.

"It isn't--it's listening."

It made me think at once of the first movement of Beethoven's sonata, called Appassionata. There is one here who plays that, and because it tells him a story, he plays it sometimes rather well and makes the others see.... The slow movement is deeply rich; the inspiration seems to go out of the sonata after that, but of the first movement we never tire, and the drama is always keen. It tells the story (to us) of a woman--of love and life and death. She wants the earth in her love--but her lover is strange and hears persistently a call that is not of earth. The woman tries to hold him. All earth beauty is about her--her love a perfume, a torrent. The voice of destiny speaks to her that it must not be. She rebels. The story rushes on, many voices coming to her re-stating the inexorable truth that he must go.

The same story is told in Coventry Patmore's Departure--to us the most magic of all the great little poems. But in Departure it is the woman who is called.

... Again and again in the Appassionata, the word comes to the woman, saying that she will be greater if she speeds him on his way. She will not hear. We sense her splendid tenure of beauty--all the wonder that Mother Earth has given her.... One after another the lesser voices have told her that it must be, but she does not obey--and then the Master comes down.

It is one of the most glowing passages in all the literature of tone. The chelas have spoken and have not availed. Now the Guru speaks. Out of vastness and leisure, out of spaciousness of soul and wisdom, out of the deeps and heights of compassion, the Guru speaks--and suddenly the woman's soul turns to him listening. That miracle of listening is expressed in the treble--a low light rippling receptivity. It is like a cup held forth--or palms held upward. The Guru speaks. His will is done.

And that is what I thought of, when the Dakotan said that the Lake was listening. It was listening to the South Wind.... That night we talked of Ireland. It may have been the fairies that the little girl always brings; or it may have been that a regiment of Irish troops had just been slaughtered in a cause that had far less significance to Ireland than our child talk by the fire; or it may have been the South Wind that brought us closer to the fairy Isle, for it is the Irish peasants who say to a loved guest at parting:

"May you meet the South Wind."

"... There isn't really an Ireland any more--just a few old men and a few old, haunting mothers. Ireland is here in America, and the last and stiffest of her young blood is afield for England. Her sons have always taken the field--that is their way--and the mothers have brought in more sons born of sorrow--magic-eyed sons from the wombs of sorrow. Elder brothers afield--fathers gone down overseas--only the fairies left by the hearth for the younger sons to play with.... So they have sung strange songs and seen strange lights and moved in rhythms unknown to many men. It is these younger sons who are Ireland now. Not a place, but a passion; not a country, but a romance.... They are in the love stories of the world, and they are always looking for their old companions, the fairies. They find the fairies in the foreign woodlands; they bring the fairies to the new countries. They are in the songs that hush the heart; they are in the mysticism that is moving the sodden world. Because they played with fairies, they were taught to look past and beyond the flesh of faces--past metals and meals and miles. Of the reds and greys and moving golds which they see, the soul of the world loves to listen, for the greatest songs and stories of all are from the Unseen----"

It was the old man dreaming aloud.

"Ireland isn't a place any more. It is a passion infused through the world," he added.

"But the fairies are still there," the little girl said.

"Some are left with the old mothers--yes, some are left. But many have taken the field, and not for the wars."

A four-day moon was dropping fast in the low west. Jupiter was climbing the east in imperial purple--as if to take command.... The littlest boy stirred in the arms of the Dakotan and began to speak, staring at the fire. We all turned and bent to listen--and it was that very thing that spoiled it--for the sentence faltered and flew away.

We all wanted to know what had been born in that long silence, for the firelight was bright in two eyes that were very wide and wise--but the brain was only seven.... I left the circle and went up the cliff to find a book in the study--a well-used book, an American book. Returning, I read this from it, holding the page close to the fire:

OLD IRELAND

Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty, Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother, Once a queen--now lean and tatter'd, seated on the ground, Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders; Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and heir; Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.

Yet a word, ancient mother; You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between your knees; O you need not sit there, veil'd in your old white hair, so dishevel'd; For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave; It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead; The Lord is not dead--he is risen, young and strong, in another country; Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave, What you wept for, was translated, pass'd from the grave, The winds favoured and the sea sail'd it, And now with rosy and new blood, Moves to-day in a new country.

One by one they dropped off asleep, the little ones first, as the moon went down--their thoughts so full of stars, asking so dauntlessly all questions of world and sky. What I could, I answered, but I felt as young as any. It seemed their dreams were fresher than mine, and their closeness to God.... The little girl touched me, as we drifted away----

"May you meet the South Wind!" she whispered.

THE BLEAKEST HOUR

It is a thankless job to raise a voice in the din of things as they are, a voice saying things are wrong. One may do this for years without penetrating the din, so long as he does not become specific. Or one may become a specialist in a certain wrong, gain recognition as a gentle fanatic on a certain subject, do much good with his passion, find certain friends and sterling enemies--and either lose or win, ultimately, according to change in the styles of his time.