REVEILLE

By JOHN GALSWORTHY.

[From King Albert's Book.]


In my dream I saw a fertile plain, rich with the hues of Autumn.
Tranquil it was and warm. Men and women, children, and the beasts worked
and played and wandered there in peace. Under the blue sky and the white
clouds low-hanging, great trees shaded the fields; and from all the land
there arose a murmur as from bees clustering on the rose-colored
blossoms of tall clover. And, in my dream, I roamed, looking into every
face, the faces of prosperity, broad and well favored--of people living
in a land of plenty, of people drinking of the joy of life, caring
nothing for the morrow. But I could not see their eyes, that seemed ever
cast down, gazing at the ground, watching the progress of their feet
over the rich grass and the golden leaves already fallen from the trees.
The longer I walked among them the more I wondered that never was I
suffered to see the eyes of any, not even of the little children, not
even of the beasts. It was as if ordinance had gone forth that their
eyes should be banded with invisibility.

While I mused on this, the sky began to darken. A muttering of distant
winds and waters came traveling. The children stopped their play, the
beasts raised their heads; men and women halted and cried to each other:
"The River--the River is rising! If it floods, we are lost! Our beasts
will drown; we, even we, shall drown! The River!" And women stood like