"Not a sound
But, echoing in me,
Vibrates all around
With a blind delight,
Till it breaks on Thee,
Queen of Night!
Every tree,
O'ershadowing with gloom,
Seems to cover thee
Secret, dark, love-still'd,
In a holy room
Silence-filled.
"Let no moon
Creep up the heaven to-night;
I in darksome noon
Walking hopefully,
Seek my shrouded light--
Grope for thee!
"Darker grow
The borders of the dark!
Through the branches glow,
From the roof above,
Star and diamond-sparks
Light for love."
Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of my own
ears, when I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It was not the
laugh of one who would not be heard, but the laugh of one who has just
received something long and patiently desired--a laugh that ends in
a low musical moan. I started, and, turning sideways, saw a dim white
figure seated beside an intertwining thicket of smaller trees and
underwood.
"It is my white lady!" I said, and flung myself on the ground beside
her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a glimpse of the
form which had broken its marble prison at my call.
"It is your white lady!" said the sweetest voice, in reply, sending a
thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love-charms
of the preceding day and evening had been tempering for this culminating
hour. Yet, if I would have confessed it, there was something either in
the sound of the voice, although it seemed sweetness itself, or else in
this yielding which awaited no gradation of gentle approaches, that did
not vibrate harmoniously with the beat of my inward music. And likewise,
when, taking her hand in mine, I drew closer to her, looking for the
beauty of her face, which, indeed, I found too plenteously, a cold
shiver ran through me; but "it is the marble," I said to myself, and
heeded it not.
She withdrew her hand from mine, and after that would scarce allow me to
touch her. It seemed strange, after the fulness of her first greeting,
that she could not trust me to come close to her. Though her words
were those of a lover, she kept herself withdrawn as if a mile of space
interposed between us.
"Why did you run away from me when you woke in the cave?" I said.
"Did I?" she returned. "That was very unkind of me; but I did not know
better."
"I wish I could see you. The night is very dark."