Shoreward beneath red clouds, and I had pour'd

Into the shadowing pencil's naked forms
Color and life. It was a bond and seal
Of friendship, spoken of with tearful smiles;
A monument of childhood and of love; 180
The poesy of childhood, my lost love
Symboll'd in storm. We gazed on it to-
gether

In mute and glad remembrance, and each heart

Grew closer to the other, and the eye
Was riveted and charm-bound, gazing like
The Indian on a still-eyed snake, low-
couch'd-

A beauty which is death; when all at once
That painted vessel, as with inner life,
Began to heave upon that painted sea.

70

Not such as mine, no, nor for such as her,
He softly put his arm about her neck
And kiss'd her more than once, till helpless
death

And silence made him bold-nay, but I wrong him,

He reverenced his dear lady even in death; But, placing his true hand upon her heart, 'O you warm heart,' he moan'd, 'not even death

Can chill you all at once' - then, starting, thought

His dreams had come again. 'Do I wake or sleep?

Or am I made immortal, or my love Mortal once more?' It beat-the heart it beat;

79

Faint - but it beat; at which his own began To pulse with such a vehemence that it drown'd

The feebler motion underneath his hand. But when at last his doubts were satisfied He raised her softly from the sepulchre, And, wrapping her all over with the cloak He came in, and now striding fast, and