"When Faith's low doorway leads into the church,
Light from austere saints mellows dusty gloom,
Sad music echoes in the stony heavens,
And this bleak pavement masks a charnel hell.
Yet in man's likeness God makes Pain divine
And here Truth's dawn breaks upwards towards the Light.
Come to the hill-top: blackbird choristers
Peal their clear anthem to the kneeling gorse;
The old trees pray, their thirsty faces rapt,
While congregations of great angel clouds
Receive the holy Sacramental Light
From God's high priest, the ministering Sun!"
"What do you want?" asked Jesse, all the rancor gone.
"Jesse, do you know that it's nearly a year since we married?"
"Ten months, Kate, and fourteen days. Do you think I don't reckon?"
I sat down on the root of the little governess tree, the humblest in the grove. "In the Bible, dear, who was the son of Jesse?"
"David, of course."
"Do you remember, dear: 'for I have provided a king among his sons'?"
He looked away across the thundrous misty depths of the cañon, and the moonlight caught his profile as though it were etched in silver. "A mighty valiant man," he whispered, "prudent in matters, and a man of war."
"Jesse, I've got such a confession to make. When you settled Mr. Trevor's estate—"
"His estates were debts, and we paid 'em. There ain't no need to fuss."