Of sand, and all the sea was rolled
In one broad, bright intensity
Of gold and gold and gold and gold.
He saw the gold of beauty which in this materialistic age few men deem of value. But when all the gold of commerce has disappeared, the gold of beauty is a treasure stored up in one's soul that will accompany him through all the ages of eternity. The one is ephemeral and useful only to provide the food, clothing, and shelter we need for the body, the other, permanent, enduring, lasting, that clothes the mind with brilliant images and the soul with helpful and stimulating aspirations.
It is one of the mistakes of life to overlook the apparently small, trifling and near-by things, in the vain desire to see some great, large, important thing. The things about us are the essential things of our life. Too often we deem them unimportant. We are so accustomed to seeing them that we pay no attention to them, yet these things were worth the thought of the Almighty Creator. Every blade of grass, every leaf of every tree is a revelation of some thought of God, hence can never be beneath the notice of mankind. This careless and unobservant attitude of mind shows our ignorance and our unwisdom. God's mysteries are before us and we refuse to read them. As Walt Whitman says: "Our streets are strewn with leaves from the book of God and we see them not." We pass them by. Let us learn to pick up these divine mysteries and in their sweet, beautiful simplicity read their sublime lessons to our own hearts.
Who would think of learning anything from the mists? Yet Joaquin Miller once wrote these words:
Behold the silvered mists that rise
From all-night toiling in the corn,
The mists have duties up the skies,
The skies have duties with the morn;