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LILITH |
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—Had there never been any ripening dead? Had I but dreamed them and their loveliness? Why then these walls ? why those empty couches ? No; they were all up ! they were all abroad in the new eternal day, and had forgotten me! They had left me behind, and alone ! Tenfold more terrible was the tomb its inhabitants away ! The quiet ones had made me quiet with their presence—had pervaded my mind with their blissful peace; now I had no friend, and my lovers were far from me ! A moment I sat and stared horror-stricken. I had been alone with the moon on a mountain top in the sky; now I was alone with her in a huge cenotaph: she too was staring about, seeking her dead with ghastly gaze ! I sprang to my feet, and staggered from the fearful place.
The cottage was empty. I ran out into the night.
No moon was there ! Even as I left the chamber, a cloudy rampart had risen and covered her. But a broad shimmer came from far over the heath, mingled with a ghostly murmuring music, as if the moon were raining a light that plashed as it fell. I ran stumbling across the moor, and found a lovely lake, margined with reeds and rushes : the moon behind the cloud was gazing upon the monsters' den, full of clearest, brightest water, and very still.—But the musical murmur went on, filling the quiet air, and drawing me after it.
I walked round the border of the little mere, and climbed the range of hills. What a sight rose to my eyes ! The whole expanse where, with hot, aching feet, ' had crossed and recrossed the deep-scored channels and ravines of the dry river-bed, was alive with streams, with torrents, with still pools— a river deep and wide '! How the moon flashed on the water ! how the |
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