On the Shores of Longing 151

the creature was attaching him too closely to
the earth and to the things of this fleeting
life of our exile. In vain he fasted and
prayed and strove to subdue his affections ;
the human heart within him would not suffer
him to rest.

Now it happened on a day when the year
had turned, and a soft wind was tossing the
little new leaves and the shadows of the
leaves and the new grass and the shadows of
the grass, Bresal was sitting on a rock in the
sun on the hillside.

Suddenly there flashed by him, in a long
swift joyous swing of flight, two beautiful
birds with long wings and forked tails and a
sheen of red and green. It was the swallows
that had returned.

For a moment he felt an ascension of the
heart, and then he recollected that nearly a
year had elapsed since he had seen the face
of his friend the Prior for the last time in
this world. And he wondered to himself
how they all fared, whether any one had died,
what this one or that was now doing, whether
they still spoke at times of him, but chiefly
he thought of the Prior, and he prayed for