—­April 19, 1886.

With the Gods

Sweet lengths of shore with sea between,
Sweet gleams of tender blue and green,
Sweet wind caressive and unseen,
        Soft breathing from the deep;

What joy have I in all sweet things;
How clear and bright my spirit sings;
Rising aloft on mystic wings;
        While sense and body sleep.

In some such dream of grace and light,
My soul shall pass into the sight
Of the dear Gods who in the height
        Of inward being dwell;

And joyful at Her perfect feet
Whom most of all I long to greet,
My soul shall lie in meadow sweet
        All white with asphodel.

—­August 31, 1887.

Part II.  Dream-Stories

I. A Village of Seers—­ A Christmas Story

A day or two before Christmas, a few years since, I found myself compelled by business to leave England for the Continent.

I am an American, junior partner in a London mercantile house having a large Swiss connection; and a transaction—­needless to specify her—­required immediate and personal supervision abroad, at a season of the year when I would gladly have kept festival in London with my friends.  But my journey was destined to bring me an adventure of a very remarkable character, which made me full amends for the loss of Christmas cheer at home.

I crossed the Channel at night from Dover to Calais.  The passage was bleak and snowy, and the passengers were very few.  On board the steamboat I remarked one traveler whose appearance and manner struck me as altogether unusual and interesting, and I deemed it by no means a disagreeable circumstance that, on arriving at Calais, this man entered the compartment of the railway carriage in which I had already seated myself.

So far as the dim light permitted me a glimpse of the stranger’s face, I judged him to be about fifty years of age.  The features were delicate and refined in type, the eyes dark and deep-sunken, but full of intelligence and thought, and the whole aspect of the man denoted good birth, a nature given to study and meditation, and a life of much sorrowful experience.

Two other travelers occupied our carriage until Amiens was reached.  They then left us, and the interesting stranger and I remained alone together.

“A bitter night,” I said to him, as I drew up the window, “and the worst of it is yet to come!  The early hours of dawn are always the coldest.”

“I suppose so,” he answered in a grave voice.

The voice impressed me as strongly as the face; it was subdued and restrained, the voice of a man undergoing great mental suffering.

“You will find Paris bleak at this season of the year,” I continued, longing to make him talk.  “It was colder there last winter than in London.”