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A FAERIE ROMANCE. 243
the mark; for the fact that I could not enter the sphere of these living beings kept me aware that, for me, I moved in a vision, while they moved in life. I looked all about for the mark, but could see it nowhere; for I avoided looking just where it was. There the dull red cipher glowed, on the very door of their secret chamber. Struck with agony, I dashed it open, and fell at the feet of the ancient woman, who still spun on, the whole dissolved ocean of my sighs bursting from me in a storm of tearless sobs. Whether I fainted or slept, I do not know; but, as I returned to consciousness, before I seemed to have power to move, I heard the woman sinking, and could distinguish the words:
O light of dead and of dying days !
O Love! in thy glory go, In a rosy mist and a moony maze,
O'er the pathless peaks of snow.
But -what is left for the cold grey soul,
That moans like a wounded dove ? One wine is left in the broken bowl—
5Tis—To love, and love, and love.
Now I could weep. When she saw me weeping,
she sang:
Better to sit at the waters' birth,
Than a sea of waves to win ; To live in the love that floweth forth,
Than the love that cometh in.
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