 my son, a crooked cross.

  It has no dignity to lend it value;
No purity--alas--it bears a stain.
You shall not give it gratitude, nor shall you
Recall it all your days except with pain.

  Oh, bless your blindness, glory in your groping!
Mock at your betters with an upward chin!
And, when the moment has gone by for hoping,
Sling your fifth stone, O son of mine, and win.

  Grief do I give you--grief and dreadful laughter.
Sackcloth for banner, ashes in your wine.
Go forth, go forth, nor ask me what comes after.
The fifth stone shall not fail you, son of mine.

GO FORTH, GO FORTH, AND SLAY THE PHILISTINE!

There were a few very warm days and nights in the west last spring. It
was at the time of the full moon.

There were so few clouds in the sky that when the sun went down it found
no canvas on which to paint its picture. So it went down unpictured into
a bank of grey heat that hid the horizon of the sea, and no one thought
it worth watching except a man coming alone along the cliff from the
northeast. The moon came up and filled the quarry with ghosts, and with
confused and blinded memories. The sea advanced in armies of great smooth
waves, but under the moon the wind went down, and the waves went down,
and there was less and less sound in the air.

One man watched the dwindling waves troop into the cove near the quarry.
There was only one pair of eyes in the whole world that tried that night
to trace in the air the shape of a drowned house. There was only one
shadow by the quarry for the moon to cast upon the thyme. There was no
voice but the voice of the sea. No passing but the peaceful passing of
the lambs disturbed the thistles and the foxgloves.

The sea rose like a wall across the night, a wall that shut half of life
away. The sky fell like a curtain on the land, but there was no piece to
be played, so the curtain was never raised.

One man waited all the night through, like a child waiting for the
fairies. The sea grew calmer and calmer, the tide went down, and the cove
spread out its long sands like fi