A vision--it came to me at times, vision--set itself in
air. I saw A People who persecuted neither Jew nor thinker.
It rose one Figure, formed of an infinite number of small
figures, but all their edges met in one glow. The figure
stood upon the sea and held apart the clouds, and was free
and fair and mighty, and was man and woman melted together,
and it took all colors and made of them a sun for its
brow. I did not know when it would live, but I knew that
it should live. Perhaps it was the whole world.
It vanished, leaving sky and ocean and Andalusia. But
great visions leave great peace. After it, for this day, it
seemed not worth while to grieve and miserably to forebode.
Through the hours that I lay there by the sea, airs from that
land or that earth blew about me and faint songs visited
my ears, and the gray day was only gray like a dove's
breast.
Jayme de Marchena stayed by the lonely sea because that
seemed the safest place to stay. At hand was the small
port of Palos that might not know what was breeding in
Seville, and going thither at nightfall I found lodging and
supper in a still corner where all night I heard the Tinto
flowing by.
I had wandered to Palos because of the Franciscan convent
of Santa Maria de la Rabida and my very distant kins-
man, Fray Juan Perez. The day after the gray day by the
shore I walked half a league of sandy road and came to
convent gate.
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