Page:Arthur Machen - The Hill of Dreams.djvu/254

THE HILL OF DREAMS cloisters. And every rose in the dusky air was a flame.

The shadowy air was full of the perfume of eastern things. The attar of roses must have been sprinkled in the fountain; the odour seemed to palpitate in the nostrils, as the music and singing on the ears. A thin spire of incense rose from a rich brass censer, and floated in filmy whorls across the oleander blossoms. And there were hints of strange drugs, the scent of opium and asrar, breathing deep reverie and the joy of long meditation. The white walls, the latticed cloisters of the court, seemed to advance and retreat, to flush and pale as the stars brightened and grew larger into silver worlds; all the faery-work of the chancelled stone hovered and glimmered beneath the sky, dark as the violet, dark as wine. The singing voice swelled to rapture and passion as the song chanted the triumph of the Lover and the Beloved, how their souls were melted together as the juice of the grape is mingled in the vintage, how they found the Gate and the Way. And all the blossoms in the dusky air, all the flowers in the garden, all the roses upon the tree, were aflame.

He had seen the life which he expressed by 244