The passion of earth and the purity of Heaven—the passion of Heaven and the deferred hope of earth—what loss and what possession were in the throbbing strains!
As never on earth, they called the glad to rapture. As never on earth, they stirred the sad to silence. Where, before, had soul or sense been called by such a clarion? What music was, we used to dream. What it is, we dare, at last, to know.
And yet—I would have been spared this if I could, I think, just now. Give me a moment’s grace. I would draw breath, and so move on again, and turn me to my next duty quietly, since even Heaven denies me, after all.
I would—what would I? Where am I? Who spoke, or stirred? Who called me by a name unheard by me of any living lip for almost twenty years?
In a transport of something not unlike terror, I could not remove my hands from my eyes, but still stood, blinded and dumb, in the middle of the shining field. Beneath my clasped fingers, I caught the radiance of the edges of the blades of grass that the low breeze swept against my garment’s hem; and strangely in that strange moment, there came to me, for the only articulate thought I could command, these two lines of an old hymn:
“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green.”
“Take down your hands,” a voice said quietly. “Do not start or fear. It is the most natural thing in the world that I should find you. Be calm. Take courage. Look at me.”
Obeying, as the tide obeys the moon, I gathered heart, and so, lifting my eyes, I saw him whom I remembered standing close beside me. We two were alone in the wide, bright field. All Heaven seemed to have withdrawn to leave us to ourselves for this one moment.
I had known that I might have loved him, all my life. I had never loved any other man. I had not seen him for almost twenty years. As our eyes met, our souls challenged one another in silence, and in strength. I was the first to speak:
“Where is she?”