Page:The Heart of England.djvu/235

 board—no voices—and their sails of a colour as if they had been steeped in the early hues of the now vanished sunset, and yet in their folds so dark that they seem to be bringing with them the night as a cargo from those cloudy black woods in the south. Beyond the large curve of those woods the shining horn of the river reaches the unseen sea. The spirit of the sea comes up on the broad silent water.

The two small, solemn boats still glide in sleep; the others dream at the quay.

Southward, the dark wood sends out the narcotic night as a gift over the land, sowing the seeds of it from the wings of the slow sea birds, from the two incoming boats, silently; and now they have fallen upon good soil in the seven boats on the quay, in the masses of houses, in the arches of the bridge and in the hearts of men, and all things drink oblivion. As I turn away there is a sound of shrill, passionless voices that may be the souls of the oblivious travelling to content somewhere in the rich purple night.