that bent above her, looking from the ship’s steep rail. She turned and saw the people all around her, the swift weave and patterned shifting of the forms, and she saw light then, ancient fading light, that fell upon the coasts of evening, and quiet waters reddened by fading day, and heard the unearthly creakings of a gull; and wonder filled her. And the strange and mortal ache of beauty, the anguish to pronounce what never could be spoken, to grasp what never could be grasped, to hold and keep for ever what was gone the moment she put her hand upon it—
“Oh, these people here,” she cried in a high tone—“The ship!… My God! the things that I could tell you all!” she cried indignantly. “The things I know—the things I have inside me here!”—she struck herself upon the breast with one clenched hand—“the way things are, the way they happen, and the beauty of the clear design—and no one ever asks me!” she cried out indignantly. “This wonderful thing is going on inside me all the time—and no one ever wants to know the way it happens!”—and stood staring at her friend accusingly a moment, a little figure of indignant loveliness until, becoming aware of people’s smiles and her companion’s laughter, her own face was suddenly suffused, and, casting back her head, she was swept with gale-like merriment—a full, rich, woman’s yell of triumph and delight.
And yet, even as she laughed, she was pierced again by the old ache of wonder, the old anguish of unspoken desire, and saw the many men, so lonely, silent, and intent, the ship immense and sudden there above her in old evening light, and so—remembering, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?”—was still with wonder.
Ah, strange and beautiful, the woman thought, how can I longer bear this joy intolerable, the music of this great song unpronounceable, the anguish of this glory unimaginable, which fills my life to bursting and which will not let me speak! It is too hard, too hard, and not to be endured, to feel the great vine welling in my heart, the wild, strange music swelling in my throat, the triumph of that final perfect song that aches for ever there just at the gateway of my utterance—and that has no tongue to speak! Oh, magic moments that are so perfect, unknown, and inevitable, to stand here at this ship’s great side, here at the huge last edge of evening and return, with this still wonder in my heart and knowing only that somehow we are fulfilled of you, oh time! And see how gathered there against the rail high over us, there at the ship’s great side,
