Towards democracy

After Fifty Years 499

thee, like fountain-waters from a hillside welling (which flow and grow into an endless stream running ever towards the centre of the Earth)—by these guided,

Take with unerring choice, and make and mould, and carve and cut and force thy way,

To the centre of all creation—to the Heart indeed of all

lovers,

Arter Firry YEARS

OOKING back row, after fifty years and more, when the main work of life is done,

When its acquisitions, its results, its alliances, are before me, and but few new elements remain to be added,

I ask myself: What is the gist, what the end, what the gain of it all?

What shall I take with me now when Death comes—as one coming homeward takes a flower in his hand for a token that he has strayed in gracious fields?

Is it applause and fame? But this, if it came to me, were only asa little stir of wind might be, to one seeking his lover in the night: a pleasant breeze—that yet might blow his lamp out!

Is it all the pleasure of life that I have had—in the beautiful woods and on the mountains, in the sun and in the waters, in social life and jollity, in my actual work?

Yea, these things were beautiful, but I have passed and left them and can return no more. The fields remain, but the flowers I plucked there are fading already on my bosom.