is the wont of the eyes of the poet or enthusiast.

He went slowly up the steps of the cross and stood at the top with one
hand laid on the shaft, and shout upon shout broke forth from the
throng. When the shouting died away into a silence of the human
voices, the bells were still quietly chiming with that far-away voice
of theirs, and the long-winged dusky swifts, by no means scared by the
concourse, swung round about the cross with their wild squeals; and
the man stood still for a little, eyeing the throng, or rather looking
first at one and then another man in it, as though he were trying to
think what such an one was thinking of, or what he were fit for.
Sometimes he caught the eye of one or other, and then that kindly
smile spread over his face, but faded off it into the sternness and
sadness of a man who has heavy and great thoughts hanging about him.
But when John Ball first mounted the steps of the cross a lad at some
one's bidding had run off to stop the ringers, and so presently the
voice of the bells fell dead, leaving on men's minds that sense of
blankness or even disappointment which is always caused by the sudden
stopping of a sound one has got used to and found pleasant. But a
great expectation had fallen by now on all that throng, and no word
was spoken even in a whisper, and all men's hearts and eyes were fixed
upon the dark figure standing straight up now by the tall white shaft
of the cross, his hands stretched out before him, one palm laid upon
the other.

And for me, as I made ready to hearken, I felt a joy in my soul that I
had never yet felt.