All the lost, unforgettable
beauty comes back to him in that dirty place; it gets him by the throat.
It got me, too.
"'Ah, God! to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Grantchester!
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell, and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain?--oh, yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?'"
"That's beautiful," she said, "but it hurts."
"Thank God you'll never know how it hurts, little Golden Heart in quiet
gardens. But for some of us, caught like rats in the trap of the ugly
fever we called living, it was black torture and yet our dear delight
to remember the deep meadows we had lost--to wonder if there was honey
still for tea."
"Stephen, won't you tell me about it--won't that help?"
And suddenly some one else looked at her through those haunted eyes--a
little boy, terrified and forsaken. "Oh, I have no right to soil you
with it.
Pages:
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391