Opening their glimmering lips to breathe some wondrous story";
and a girl of the home place brought before him by such lines as
"Dusk, a pearl-grey river, o'er
Hill and vale puts out the day—
What do you wonder at, asthore,
What's away in yonder grey?"
but all these poems, of which these lines are the fine onsets, lead past "the dim stars" and "unto the Light of Lights."
A man that believes that his spirit is one with the Universal Spirit cannot but be an optimist if he believe that Spirit is the Spirit of Good, and that a Platonist must believe. Yet "A.E." so longs to be rapt into everlasting union with the Universal Spirit that he tires of the earth, where that union is interrupted by the necessities of daily life. The fairies call to him and he would away—
"'Come away,' the red lips whisper, 'all the world is weary now;
'Tis the twilight of the ages and it's time to quit the plough.