SOMETIMES when I go out on the barrenness my mind wanders afar.
To-day it went to Greece.
Oh, it was very beautiful in Greece!
There was a wide, long sky that was vividly, wonderfully blue. And there was a limitless sea that was gray and green. And it went far to the south. The sky and the sea spread out into the vast world—two beautiful elements, and they fell in love with each other. And the farther away they were the nearer they moved together until at last they met and clasped each other in the far distance. There were tall, dark-green trees of kinds that are seen only in Greece. They murmured and whispered in the stillness. The wind came off from the sea and went over them and around them. They quivered and trembled in shy, ecstatic joy—for the wind was their best-beloved. There were banks of moss of a deep emerald color, and golden flowers that drooped their heavy sensual heads over to the damp black earth. And they also loved each other, and were with each other, and were glad. Clouds hung low over the sea and were dark-gray and heavy with rain. But the sun shone from behind them at intervals with beams of bronze-and-copper. Three white rocks rose up out of the sea, and the bronze-and-copper beams fell upon them, and straightway they were of gold.
Oh, how beautiful were those three gold rocks that came up out of the sea!
Aphrodite once came up out of this same sea. She came gleaming, with golden hair and beautiful eyes. Her skin glowed with tints of carmine and wild rose. Her white feet touched the smooth, yellow sand on the shore. The white feet of Aphrodite on the yellow sand made a picture of marvelous beauty. She was flushed in the joy of new life.
But the bronze-and-copper sunshine on the three white rocks was more beautiful than Aphrodite.
I stood on the shore and looked at the rocks. My heart contracted with the pain that beautiful things bring.
The bronze-and-copper in the wide gray and green sea!
"This is the gateway of Heaven," I said to myself. "Behind those three gold rocks there is music and the high notes of happy voices." My soul grew faint. "And there is no sand and barrenness there, and no Nothingness, and no bitterness, and no hot, blinding tears. And there are no little heart-weary children, and no lonely young women—oh, there is no loneliness at all!" My soul grew more and more faint with thinking of it. "And there is no heart there but that is pure and joyous and in Peace—in long, still, eternal Peace. And every life comes there to its own; and every earth-cry is answered, and every earth-pain is ended; and the dark spirit of Sorrow that hangs always over the earth is gone—gone,—beyond the gateway of Heaven. And more than all, Love is there and walks among the dwellers. Love is a shining figure with radiant hands, and it touches them all with its hands so that never-dying love enters into their hearts. And the love of each for another is like the love of each for self. And here at last is Truth. There is searching and searching over the earth after Truth—and who has found it? But here is it beyond the gateway of Heaven. Those who enter in know that it is Truth at last."
And so Peace and Love and Truth are there behind the three gold rocks.
And then my soul could no longer endure the thought of it.
Suddenly the sun passed behind a heavy, dark-gray cloud, and the bronze-and-copper faded from the three rocks and left them white—very white in the wide water.
The yellow flowers laid their heads drowsily down on the emerald moss. The wind from off the sea played very gently among the motionless branches of the tall trees. The blue, blue sky and the wide, gray-green sea clasped each other more closely and mingled with each other and became one vague, shadowy element—and from it all I brought my eyes back thousands of leagues to my sand and barrenness.
The sand and barrenness is itself an element, and I have known it a long, long time.