Naught, God help me, worse than naught; for mine eyes were holden.
Dark amid that spiritual vision, I stood stricken. Alone in all that blessedness, was I bereft?
Whom, for very rapture, did they melt to welcome? Whom greeted they, with that great wave of love, so annihilating to their consciousness of themselves that I knew when I beheld it, I had never seen the face of Love before?
Among them all, I stood alone—blind, blind. Them I saw, and their blessedness, till I was filled with such a sacred envy of it that I would have suffered some new misery to share it. But He who did move among them thus royally and thus benignly, who passed from each man to each man, like the highest longing and the dearest wish of his own heart, who was to them one knew not whether the more of Master or of chosen Friend,—Him, alas, I saw not. To me He was denied. No spiritual optic nerve in me announced His presence. I was blind,—I was blind.
Overcome by this discovery, I did not notice that my boy had loosened his hold upon my hand until his little fingers were quite disengaged from my clasp; and then, turning to speak to him, I found that he had slipped from me in the crowd. This was so great and the absorption so universal that no one noticed the mishap; and grateful, indeed, at that miserable moment, to be unobserved, I went in search of him.
Now, I did not find the child, though I sought long and patiently; and when I was beginning to feel perplexed, and to wonder what chance could have befallen him, I turned, and behold, while I had been searching, the throng had dispersed.
Night was coming on All the citizens were strolling to their homes. On street, and plain, and hill stirred the shadows of the departing people. They passed quietly. Every voice was hushed. All the world was as still as a heart is after prayer.
In the silent purple plain, only I was left alone. Moved by solitude, which is the soul's sincerity, I yielded myself to strange impulses, and turning to the spot, where He who was invisible had passed or seemed to pass, I sought to find upon the ground and in the dusk some chance imprint of His steps. To do this it was necessary for me to stoop; and while I was bowed, searching for some least sign of Him, in the dew and dark, I knew not what wave of shame and sorrow came upon me, but I fell upon my knees. There was no creature to hear me, and I spoke aloud, and said:—
"Thou departest from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" ...
"Lord," I said, "that I may receive my sight!"