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(6)

hail, and so breaks them, so confuses them, that it seems
impossible that their calm should ever return, or from their
fragments we should ever compose again the whole, the truth.
For our penitence deserves a glimpse only, our toil respite
only.
      The nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees
plunge and bend and their dishonoured leaves fly helter skelter
until the lawn is plastered with them and they lie packed in
gutters and choke rain pipes and scatter damp paths. Also the
sea tosses and breaks itself, and should any escaped soul, any
sleeper, who fancies that in sleep he has grasped the hand of a
sharer walk the edge of the sea, no image with divine promptitude
and semblance of serving comes readily to hand bringing the night
to order and making the sea reflect the compass of the soul.
He may pace by the hour on the midnight beach but the hand
dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear. Almost,
one would have thought, it is vain, in such confusion, to ask
the night those questions: what, why? which roused the sleeper
from his dreams, and sent him running, down to the waves, to seek,
it seemed, a comforter.
      Now again, since autumn was far advanced, it was possible
to attempt the house. All the beds were empty; the stray airs,
spies, advance guard of great armies, brushed bare mattresses and,
as they nibbled and moistened and fanned this way and that, met
nothing that wholly resisted them, but only hangings that

 


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