Lord, I am Atma, and I have transgressed;
I sought the Present whom we may not seek,
The Future whom I slighted went before
And waited armed and my goods did take.
This is my sin that sent on high behest
I slept; Lord, as one waited at thy golden door
A hundred years, and snatched a little rest,
And waked to see the closing gateway drawn
And lived thereafter only in the dawn
Of that brief moment's light, so also I
Must dream of wasted radiance till I die."
CHAPTER XIX.
The quiet days were passing slowly. Bertram's wound did not heal, and
his strength grew less. The unseen powers that throng the air and watch
our ways arranged about him the phantasmagoria of dissolution. It was
the waning of the moon. A tender mist, which had long veiled a mountain
crest, now unfolded its depths and was wafted away. A star shot across
the welkin and was no more seen. Summer blossoms faded with the dying
season. The music of the pine-boughs had a more melancholy cadence, and
birds of passage took their flight. Atma marked these things, and often
withdrew to lament.
One evening they watched the shadows lengthening. Atma's heart was
oppressed, but Bertram looked on the shifting scene with happy undaunted
smile. In voice pathetic only from mortal weakness and strong with
immortality he said:
"When mists and dreams and shadows flee,
And happy hills so far and high
Bend low in benedicite,
I know the break of day is nigh.
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