And hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving; Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving, No nightly trance or breathèd spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. "The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; Edgèd with poplars pale, The parting genius is with sighing sent; With flower-enwoven tresses torn, The nymphs in twilight shades of tangled thickets mourn." Like a psalm the great Hymn fills the air, and like a psalm it remains in the memory. The fire has burned low, and a soft and solemn light fills the room. Neither of us speaks while the clock strikes twelve. I look out of the window. The heavens are ablaze with light, and somewhere amid those circling constellations I know that a new star has found its place, and is shining with such a ray as never before fell from heaven to earth. CHAPTER VII NEW YEAR'S EVE E last fire of many that have blazed on my hearth these twelve months gone is fast sinking into ashes. I do not care to revive its expiring flame, because I find its slow fading into darkness harmonious with the hour and the thought which comes with it as the shadow follows the cloud. While it is true that our division of time into years is purely conventional and finds no recognition or record on the great dial face of the heavens, no man can be quite oblivious of it. New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite |