But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,

And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,

And the slant yellow beam down the woodaisle doth seem

Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream,

Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,

And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke

Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,

And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,

And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within,

30

That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the Marshes of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore

When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore,

And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain

Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain,

Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face
The vast sweet visage of space.

To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,

Where the gray beach glimmering runs,
as a belt of the dawn,
For a mete and a mark
To the forest-dark :-
So:

Affable live-oak, leaning low, —

Thus

with your favor soft, with a reverent hand

(Not lightly touching your person, Lord of

the land!),

Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand

On the firm-packed sand,

As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight,

Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.

And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high?

The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky!

A league and a league of marsh-grass, waisthigh, broad in the blade,

Green, and all of a height, and unflecked
with a light or a shade,
Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain,
To the terminal blue of the main.

60

So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded away to the burn.

But Maclean never bating his watch tarried waiting below;

30

Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go

All the space of an hour; then he went, and his face was greenish and stern,

And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eye-balls shone,

As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to see.

'Now, now, grim henchman, what is 't with thee?'

Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the wind hath upblown.

'Three does and a ten-tined buck made out,' spoke Hamish, full mild,

And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was blown, and they passed; I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast.'

Cried Maclean: 'Now a ten-tined buck in the sight of the wife and the child 40

I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought me a snail's own wrong!' Then he sounded, and down came kinsmen and clansmen all:

'Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall,

And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of thong!'

So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes; at the last he smiled. 'Now I'll to the burn,' quoth Maclean, 'for it still may be,

If a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me,

I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the wife and the child!'

Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that; and over the hill Sped Maclean with an outward wrath for an inward shame;

50

And no man spake beside Hamish; he counted each stroke with a song. When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace down the height, And he held forth the child in the heartaching sight

90

Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as repenting a wrong.

And there as the motherly arms stretched out with the thanksgiving prayer And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift pace,

Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie's face

In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the child in the air,

And sprang with the child in his arms from the horrible height in the sea, Shrill screeching, Revenge!' in the wind-rush; and pallid Maclean, Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain, Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead roots of a tree,

There, while they stood in a green wood And marvelled still on Ill and Good,

Came suddenly Minister Mind. In the heart of sin doth hell begin: "T is not below, 't is not above, It lieth within, it lieth within:' (Where?' quoth Love)

'I saw a man sit by a corse; Hell's in the murderer's breast: remorse! Thus clamored his mind to his mind: Not fleshly dole is the sinner's goal, Hell's not below, nor yet above, "T is fixed in the ever-damnèd soul’— 'Fixed?' quoth Love —

'Fixed: follow me, would'st thou but see: He weepeth under yon willow tree,

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70

Fast chained to his corse,' quoth
Mind.

Full soon they passed, for they rode fast,
Where the piteous willow bent above.
'Now shall I see at last, at last,

Hell,' quoth Love.