WHEN LIKE A flaming scimitar the hill stream has been sheathed in gloom by the evening, suddenly a flock of birds passes overhead, their loud-laughing wings hurling their flight like an arrow among stars.

 

        It startles a passion for speed in the heart of all motionless things; the hills seem to feel in their bosom the anguish of storm-clouds, and trees long to break their rooted shackles.

 

 

For me the flight of these birds has rent a veil of stillness, and reveals an immense flutter in this deep silence.

 

        I see these hills and forests fly across time to the unknown, and darkness thrill into fire as the stars wing by.

 

        I feel in my own being the rush of the sea-crossing bird, cleaving a way beyond the limits of life and death, while the migrant world cries with a myriad voices, 'Not here, but somewhere else, in the bosom of the Faraway.'