Outside the marmot’s cry was shrill,
The mountain torrents plunged in smoke;
Inside our hearts were breathless still
To hear the secret word He spoke.
We heard Him, but the eyelids close,
The seal of silence dumbs the lips
Of such as in the awful snows
Receive the dread Apocalypse.
Later we climbed down into the snowy glen beneath the Cave, and ate our meal under a rock, with the marmots shrilling about us, and I found at my feet—what? A tuft of bright golden violets—all the delicate penciling in the heart, but shining gold. I remembered Ulysses in the Garden of Circe, where the moly is enshrined in the long thundering roll of Homer’s verse:—
“For in another land it beareth a golden flower, but not in this.”