(24)rising, quiet rose, the rooks settled the grass settled. Looselythe world shook itself down to sleep, darkly here without a lightto it, save what came suffused through leaves or pale on flowers.IX

Then indeed peace had come. Messages of peace breathed fromthe sea to the shore. Never to break its sleep any more, to lullit rather more deeply to rest and whatever the dreamers dreamtwisely, dreamt holily, to confirm -- what else was it murmuring?And behold, our message, our wisdom, it seemed to say, is clothedin splendour. The wave sweeps dark up the beach. Our peace isa brooding peace, our beauty a conscious beauty. We lie at yourdoor wishing you well.

Who, waking in the depths of this dark, this holy, thisrestful night whose darkness was a veil, whose murmur was ofsecrets too deep to be fully uttered, could, even now, after thedamp and the spies, after the toad and the rat, resist the desireto walk there on the beach on the pale sand, with the waves break-ing, and only a light in the harbour a light on some mast head, alight on the waves, and ask again, What and why?

Yet seeing how often they had asked, how much had suffered,how often been mocked, it were wiser perhaps to lie there in thedark; to listen only; to let it say what it would -- to chant,the croom,nthat it was a marvellous night, and the moon burntthrough the blue like a rose. Through the open window the voiceof the beauty of the world came murmuring, too softly for them to
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