is to be hungry, and that, if folk were hungry, they must first find means of feeding themselves before they could listen. So he gave the beggar all that he had of food in his packet, which was the least that he could do, and sent him on his way, charging him with the message.
At the top of the hill, Peter came on another man, sitting under a sycamore tree. The man was a youth, and very beautiful, and he was making a little song, which went like this:—
“Open, world, your trembling petals slowly,
Here one, there one, natal to its hour,
Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy,
You shall be a flower.”
Though Peter did not know what the song might mean, yet it fell sweetly upon the night, and he liked to listen. And when it was done, he went and stood before the youth.
“Sir,” he said, “the world is beginning. You must go and help the king.”
“I know, I know, little lad,” said the youth, and his voice was clear, like bird-notes that were turning into words. “I, too, tell the message, making it in a song.”
And these words made Peter glad, so that his
