The High Hills and Gods Man

Sun hath sunk in radiant splendor,
Now the colors fade away
And the moon, with light more tender,
Sheds its silver on the bay.

Eventide is softly casting
O'er the earth a magic spell,
And a love-song, everlasting,
On the night wind seems to swell.

Deeper grow the lengthening shadows,
Darkening the heaven's blue,
One by one the stars are gleaming,
Night is nigh, would you were, too.

Donald hummed the words in his not unmelodious baritone, as he climbed
up the forest path down which, twelve months before, he had rushed
headlong, in blind anger.

The spell of the high, forest-clad hills, and the new-born night was upon
his spirit. Pleasant anticipations filled his heart, and left no room
for painful recollection as he hastened over the needle-strewn pathway
on which the white radiance of the full moon, shining through the
branches, made a tracery of silver and black.

Let men whose minds are governed wholly by cold commonsense, and whose
souls hold no spark of vitalizing imagination, scoff at moon-witchery
and lunar madness. Let them declare that the earth's haunting satellite
is merely a dead world which cannot even shine with its own light. Magic
it _does_ wield. And, just as it distorts and magnifies all commonplace,
familiar objects, so it twists the thoughts of men; just as it steals
away the natural colors from the things of earth, and substitutes for
them those of its own conception, so it alters the hues of man's
meditation.