She had no bodily semblance; she was a
principle. In his exalted mood, being tiptoe for Mystery, he identified
her with the Spirit of all Life. For life to him was a straining at the
leash, a reaching for the unattainable, a preparation to soar. He saw all
things flowing towards heaven, which to him was Harmony, Rest, what he
called Appeasement. And all this straining and yearning in infinite
variety was figured to him in Sanchia, as he discerned, but could not
perceive, her presence. He made her out in elemental images, into the
contours of the hills read her bountiful shape, into the onslaught of the
wind her dauntless ardour. In fire leaped her pride, in the mantling snow
her chastity was proclaimed. The rain was her largess, her treasure poured
to enrich mankind. All flowers were sacred to her--frail beauty salient
from the earth. He never looked on one but he blessed her name.
On a later day he read a poem to his guest--which he called the Song of
Mab. By this name, it seems, he also figured Sanchia, whose synonyms,
threatened to be as many as those of Artemis or the Virgin Mary. From
poring for signs of her in the face of earth he was come to see little
else. If the west wind was her breath and the hills were her breasts, it
needed a mystic to see them so; and he was become a mystic.
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