OCR Text |
Show 158 the stream was covered by a band of golden specks, moving silently out to sea. After the first flurry the children crept close to their A parents, gazing together at the moving golden stream. First their eyes tried to take in the whole mass, gluttonously; then they settled on one candle, watching its progress as if it were theirs alone, noting how it rode, how the current rocked it, how the breeze threatened to drive it onto the rocks. Soma of the flames rode calmly down the center until, passing beneath the bridge, they were cut from view. Others eddied about, wayward currents caught them, carried them to shore, Some, placed wrong, hardly survived the launching, and turning over went under; others moved about erratically, stranded themselves on a darkened beach. The watchers grew quiet, touched by awe. The river had been bearing these fires for centuries, a myriad had burnt their moment and died; two years back whole cities had gone their route. Still the earth poured forth her lights, sent them down the stream, out of one darkness and into another. No single flame was spectacular, for each looked alike, riding in their massive inexorability. Only massed did they make a strange, lost, lovely light. |