But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish’d and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days![725]
He often reviews his past, so seemingly purposeless and incoherent, and yet so profoundly urged from its source within toward the unseen goal. Still before him, he sees endless vistas of the eternal purpose. The secret souls of things speak to him; the restless sea betrays the unsatisfied passion of the Earth’s great heart;[726] the rain bears love back with it to the mountains whence it came.[727] Everything instructs him, for he remains eager to learn—criticism and rejection at least as much as acceptance.
Sometimes the long process of dying—the painfully prolonged separating of a Body and Soul which were more intimately wedded than are others—leaves its mark upon the page; as in a brief note where he states simply that his solemn experiences at this period are unlikely to occur in any other human life.[728] He felt himself solitary even in his pain. But this was a solitude hallowed and supported by the Everlasting Arms.