Read "Within the Gates" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the same perspective as Scene III. is the Heavenly City on the Hill. Thronging spirits move to and fro.
The distance is full of radiance and of happy social life. In the foreground is seen a dim and desolate place. It is cavernous and mountainous. Its extreme edge yawns over a black space, like a gulf or pit, or it might be the mouth of an underground river. Here and there is a stark, dead tree. A narrow footpath winds among the crags. The path turns a sharp corner between boulders; and the fair contrast of a sunny country smiles beyond it. Rosebushes in full bloom peer above the top of the rocks. The annunciation lily is still prominent among the flowers. No sign of life appears in the mountainous foreground.