The splendid pageant moves on, gathering its votaries
as it passes from one marvellous change to another; and yet the
Mistress of the Revels is nowhere visible. The crowds press from point
to point, peering into the depths of the woods and watching stealthily
where the torrent breaks from its dungeon in the hills, and leaps, mad
with joy, in the new-found liberty of light and motion; but not a
flutter of her garment betrays to the keenest eye the Presence which is
the soul of all this visible, moving scene.
And now there is a subtle change in the air; premonitions of death
begin to thrust themselves in the midst of the revelry; there is a
brief hush, a sudden glow of splendour, and lo! the pageant is
seemingly at an end. The crowd linger a little, gather a few faded
leaves, and depart; a few--a very few--wait. Now that the throngs have
vanished and the revelry is over, they are conscious of a deep,
pervading quietude; these are days when something touches them with a
sense of near and sacred fellowship; Nature has cast aside her gifts,
and given herself. For there is a something behind the glory of
summer, and they only have entered into real communion with Nature who
have learned to separate her from all her miracles of power and beauty;
who have come to understand that she lives apart from the singing of
birds, the blossoming of flowers, and the waving of branches heavy with
leaves.
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