The Night Land

And, surely, as I watched the other young men about her, I burned with a

fierce and miserable jealousy of them; so that I could near have stept

forth and plucked her out from among them, and had her to walk with me

in the woods, as in the olden days, when she also had seemed near to

love. But, truly, what use to this? For it was not they who held her

heart, as I saw plain; for I watched her, with an eager and lonesome

heart, and knew that it was one small man of the Court that was lover to

her, as I have told.

And I went away again then, and came not near to the gap for three great

months, because that I could not bear the pain of my loss; but in the

end of that time, my very pain to urge me to go, and to be worse than

the pain of not going; so that I found myself one evening in the gap,

peering, very eager and shaken, across the sward that lay between the

gap and the woods; for this same place to be as an holy ground to me;

for there was it that first I saw Mirdath the Beautiful, and surely lost

my heart to her in that one night.

And a great time I stayed there in the gap, waiting and watching

hopelessly. And lo! sudden there came something against me, touching my

thigh very soft; and when I looked down, it was one of the boar-hounds,

so that my heart leaped, near frightened; for truly My Lady was come

somewhere nigh, as I did think.

And, as I waited, very hushed and watchful; yet with an utter beating

heart; surely I heard a faint and low singing among the trees, so utter

sad. And lo! it was Mirdath singing a broken love song, and a-wander

there in the dark alone, save for her great dogs. And I harked, with strange pain in me, that she did be so in pain; and I

ached to bring her ease; yet moved not, but was very still there in the

gap; save that my being was all in turmoil.

And presently, as I harked, there came a slim white figure out from

among the trees; and the figure cried out something, and came to a quick

pause, as I could see in the half-dark. And lo! in that moment, there

came a sudden and unreasoned hope into me; and I came up out of the gap,

and was come to Mirdath in a moment, calling very low and passionate and

eager: "Mirdath! Mirdath! Mirdath!"