On that New Year's morning when I drew up the blind it was still nearly
dark, but for the faintest pink flush glancing out there on the horizon
of black water. The far shore of the river's mouth was just soft dusk;
and the dim trees below me were in perfect stillness. There was no lap of
water. And then--I saw her, drifting in on the tide-the little ship,
passaging below me, a happy ghost. Like no thing of this world she came,
ending her flight, with sail-wings closing and her glowing lantern eyes.
There was I know not what of stealthy joy about her thus creeping in to
the unexpecting land. And I wished she would never pass, but go on
gliding by down there for ever with her dark ropes, and her bright
lanterns, and her mysterious felicity, so that I might have for ever in
my heart the blessed feeling she brought me, coming like this out of that
great mystery the sea. If only she need not change to solidity, but ever
be this visitor from the unknown, this sacred bird, telling with her
half-seen, trailing-down plume--sails the story of uncharted wonder. If
only I might go on trembling, as I was, with the rapture of all I did not
know and could not see, yet felt pressing against me and touching my face
with its lips! To think of her at anchor in cold light was like
flinging-to a door in the face of happiness. And just then she struck
her bell; the faint silvery far-down sound fled away before her, and to
every side, out into the utter hush, to discover echo. But nothing
answered, as if fearing to break the spell of her coming, to brush with
reality the dark sea dew from her sail-wings. But within me, in
response, there began the song of all unknown things; the song so
tenuous, so ecstatic, that seems to sweep and quiver across such thin
golden strings, and like an eager dream dies too soon. The song of the
secret-knowing wind that has peered through so great forests and over
such wild sea; blown on so many faces, and in the jungles of the grass
the song of all that the wind has seen and felt. The song of lives that
I should never live; of the loves that I should never love singlng to me
as though I should! And suddenly I felt that I could not bear my little
ship of dreams to grow hard and grey, her bright lanterns drowned in the
cold light, her dark ropes spidery and taut, her sea-wan sails all
furled, and she no more en chanted; and turning away I let fall the
curtain.