June 7.

The train flies across the clay; once more the world
through the car windows begins to wheel in slow circles;
soft fresh clouds melt and shift over the low curves of the
hills; colors grow cooler and cooler. I ride into mystery
The Southwest is the land of heat and the hills of the desert
rise up against the burning light in symbols of a ritual of
fire older than human memory; but here - as I pass from the
States into the Dominion I see that all outlines have shaped
themselves into an everlasting worship of the powers of air.
I go to them on my dreams, the air-elementals; tonight, as
the stars gather over Montreal, there they are sitting in
council forever, old gods of wide spaces, throned on glitter-
ing winds, towering up in the North hard and remote beyond
thought; the Northern Lights flicker in their angry eyes--

June 11.

QUEBEC

The St. Lawrence grows wider and wider; the late
afternoon sun shines through a thin cool haze; we swing around
a great curve to the East -- I hear an old French love-
song echo in a Winter twilight; grape shot bursts in my memory,
and the cries of Wolfe and Montcalm -- An aeroplane humming
over the citadel; long rows of high-pitched roofs along the
water-line; faint pale colors; towers and spires streaming up
in the silver air -- The outlines of the hills stretch away
cold and wild; they call on the spirit of storm. Air and
water are grey; we rush on to the open sea in the night.

June 16.

A day of all the greys that can appear to the eye,
all cool and tender -- grey birds sliding in and out of
the hollows of the sea, mist-filled -- night drew near;
then out of the haze in the South came the Isles of Aran,
in a golden haze, clear and thin like a vision -- valleys
of emerald in visionary light, half withdrawn, quivering
and shimmering -- the form behind form, the color shining
through color, the inner, secret heart of all dreaming...
Then it was taken away... The memory is a key to chambers
of glory. Emerald ! I say to myself in the darkness --
Emerald ! -- The Emerald Island! -- Aran!...

June 28.

Now it is the evening of the signing of peace -
Again as in November 1914 I walk among the crowds of London
under great searchlights that reach up across the night to
where the stars rest - - - Then, it was dark and quiet,
muffled. Now cressets flame from the roofs and rockets drop
red and blue fire through the dark air over millions of people,
packed, swarming like bees - - - In my room, now, the memory
of all that has been said and done in these five years comes
to me and cries for understanding.

July 4.

I walk through old streets veiled in a saffron haze of rain and mist to a square of houses decorated by Adam, of an undreamed of delicacy and subtlety of tone, through softly lighted corridors to a hall; around me faded grey and old gold; before me the Southern Syncopated Orchestra playing Negro music, with its forbidden pungency and its forbidden darkness,-- far away in the womb, and long ago.

July 11.

A sad moon, the color of honey, hangs low over the roofs
of old palaces and touches the ruins of fountains dried now, be-
and forgotten;
through the heavy air, drop by drop, falls
the scent of the plane-trees - - -

July 13.

In the afternoon to Hampton Court, riding slowly
down the avenue of dark chestnuts round the pool of lilies
asleep in the afternoon air, to high dark halls where light
from old windows strikes flames of scarlet and purple from
the arrays tapestries - - - In the evening to the theatre in a
box with old Mrs. Wolcott and Lady Northcliffe, her face made
for one hour with the most delicate art, weaving wafts of
allusion with the lightest touch in the world. Later there
was a moment on a flight of steps under the lamps while others
drew back to let us pass and she hoped we might meet again.

One had that - - -

Hampton Court, August 9.

Now all about me, as I lie under the chestnuts, come
the first sad airs of Autumn, and the drowsy lights. The
great pool dreams in the sun, - the statues, green and gold,
the heavy lilies - - Deer move silently through the shadows -
the sound of sweet bells chiming the hours - - Horas non numero
nisi serenas, Only the calm hours I number - - The sun drops
lower. I must say Goodbye to this Old World, a memory so soon.
I try to go, and stay, and linger - - And now the light is
dim. The stillness grows. A great gold moon through the
quiet air, up from the mists at the end of the world; floats,
Pale withered leaves are falling softly from the branches - - -

London, August 12.

Now for the last time I walk along the embankment,
in the cool evening -- The river blue as a vision, the
barges passing soundlessly as on the breath of those who
sleep, the tide rising through the distances like the tide
of loneliness in the heart-- Others, like me, lean on the
parapet and watch the stars wavering below in a depth of blue
beyond dreaming - Others, like me, watch the stars; their
hands touch in the night.

London, August 26, 1919.

Now for the last time I slip into dreaming --
and in my dream I am flying again over Hendon, cleared and
hooded, strapped tight in my passenger-seat -- reeling and
quivering, staggering up, higher and higher into the wild
sunset -- up from the earth, honey-colored with harvest --
up, minute after minute, through cumulus clouds that foam
and boil all around us, blinding bright -- up where the air
is bitter cold and thin and the sky is icy blue over a tossing
sea of white, trackless, vast -- up I go, gasping for breath,
drowsy with ecstacy -- out of the moods and passions, into
the will -- rushing swift into the high Western light, swift
into my dream --

Even so, O Thou clear Light of our world, may my trembling
heart lift itself ever, high above mists and cloudings, far
into the bright distances of Thine own radiant wisdom, on the
rushing wings of Thy winds --