The Turn of the Tide
For days past there have been intangible hints of change in earth and
air; the birds are silent, and the universal strident note of insect
life makes more musical to memory the melodies of the earlier season.
The sense of overflowing vitality which pervaded all things a few days
ago, when the tide was at the flood, has gone; the tide has turned, and
already one sees the receding movement of the ebb. Through all the
vanished months of flower and song, one's thought has travelled fast
upon the advancing march of summer, trying to keep pace with it as it
pushed its fragrant conquest northward; to-day there is a brief
interval of pause before the same thought, following the sunshine,
turns south again, and seeks the tropics. A little later the spell of
an indescribable peace will rest upon the earth, but a peace that will
be but a brief truce between elements soon to close in struggle again.
To-day, however, one feels the repose of a finished work before the
first mellow touch of decay has come. The full, rich foliage still
shelters the paths upon which the leaves have not yet fallen; the
meadows are green; the skies soft and benignant. The conquest of
summer is still intact, but here and there one sees slight but
unmistakable evidence that the garrison, under cover of night, is
beginning its long retreat. In such a moment one feels a sudden sense
of loneliness, as if a friend were secretly preparing to desert one to
his foes.
In this pause of the season one finds the subtle beauty and
completeness of the summer growing upon him more and more. While the
work was going forward, there was such profound interest in the process
that one watched the turn and direction of the chisel rather than the
surface of the marble slowly answering, line by line, the overmastering
thought; but now that the months of toil are past, and all the
implements of labour are cast aside, the finished work absorbs all
thought and fills all imaginations. So vast is it, and on such a scale
of magnitude, that one hardly saw before the delicacy and exquisite
adjustment of parts, the marvellous art that framed the smallest leaf
and touched the vagrant wild flower still blooming on the edges of the
woodland. It is, after all, when the great festival days are over and
the thronging crowds have gone, that the true worshipper finds the
temple beautiful with the highest visions of worship, and in the
silence of deserted aisles and shrines sees with new wonder the
workmanship of the Deity. For all such this is the most solemn of all
the recurring Sabbaths of the year; the hush at noonday and at even is
itself an unspoken prayer. The moment of completion in the history of
any great work is always sacred. When the noise and dust of the
working days are gone, the great illuminating thought shines out
unobscured; and in the perception of this universal element, which on
the instant wins recognition from every mind, the personal element
vanishes; the mere skill of the workman is forgotten in the new
revelation of soul which it has given the world. For the same reason
Nature takes on in these few and peaceful days a spiritual aspect, and
the most careless finds himself touched, perhaps saddened, he knows not
how or why.
Now again is the old mystery and deep secret of life forced upon
thought: "Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it
abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit." When
the tide was at the flood it was enough to breathe the air and listen
to the magical music of advancing life; but now, when the tide begins
to recede and leave the vast shores bare and silent, one must think,
whether he will or not. Nature, that was careless poet, flower-crowned
and buoyant with the promise of eternal youth, turns teacher, and will
not suffer us to escape the deeper truths, the more searching and awful
lessons. As the physical falls away the spiritual comes into clear and
compelling distinctness. Who that goes abroad in these quiet days, and
feels the subtle change from the grosser to the ethereal which pervades
the very air, can escape the threefold thought of Life, Death, and
Immortality?
The silence that has already fallen upon the jubilant voices of summer
will extend and deepen day by day until even the thoughtless babbling
of the brooks ceases and the hush becomes universal. The earth, that a
little time ago was producing such an endless variety of forms of life
and beauty, will give birth to a myriad thoughts, deep, spiritual, and
far-reaching; translating into the language of spirit the vast movement
of the year, and completing its mysterious cycle with a vision of the
sublime ends for which Nature stands, and to the consummation of which
all things are borne forward. And when the time is ripe there will
come a transformation like the descent of the heavens upon the earth,
flooding the dying world with unspeakable splendours; the sunset which
closes the long summer day and leaves through the night of winter the
fadeless promise of another dawn.