Epilogue — A Trail on the Water
And thus at last we come down to the sea—black, murmurous waste—rolling vastly under the evening sky, and against the far golden horizon. In this swift approaching night all that has been, all the base dishonesty, the foulness, the little-visible much-felt, shall be washed away, for it is the world that was. When the dripping sun flashes up again out of the east, ’twill be to send a shower of golden beams down the wind that is bearing a white-winged bark westward over the blue expanse. What two souls this vessel bears, whence—from what darkness of the Old—whither—to what brightness of the New—need scarce be told. The trial of their faith and love is over. Obedient to the victory call, out of the depths that have so long surrounded them, the future, star-crowned, rises up at last.
The End