shions change so quickly in music--he is out-of-date. He gave his
youth? Well--

"I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine."

Supposing we could know perfect bliss in this world, what should we have
for which to strive? We must lead some life beyond, we must have a bliss
to die for! If _he_ had this glory-garland round his soul, what other
joy could he ever so dimly descry?

"Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?
Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride."

* * * * *

Thus he has mused, riding beside her, to the horses' rhythmic stretching
pace. It shall be best as she decrees. She rejects him: he will not
whine; what she does shall somehow have its good for him--_she_ shall
not be wrong! He has the thought of her in his soul, and the memory of
her--and there will be, as well, the memory of this ride. That moment he
has, whole and perfect:

"Who knows but the world may end to-night!"

Yes; they ride on--the sights, the sounds, the thoughts, encompass them;
they are together. His soul, all hers, has yet been half-withdrawn from
her, so deeply has he mused on what she is to him: it is the great
paradox--almost one forgets that she is there, so intimate the union,
and so silent. . . . But is she _not_ there? and, being there, does she
not now seem to give him something strange and wonderful to take from
her? She _is_ there--

"And yet--she has not spoke so long!"

She is as silent as he. They might both be in a trance. He knows what
his trance is--can it be that hers is the same? Then what would it
mean? . . . And the hope so manfully resigned floods back on him. What
if this _be_ heaven--what if she has found, caught up like him, that she
does love?

Can it mean that, gazing both, now in this glorious moment, at life's
flower of love, they both are fixed so, ever shall so abide--she with
him, as he with her? Can it mean that the instant is made eternity--

"And heaven just prove that I and she
Ride, ride together, for ever ride?"

* * * * *

Despite the transcendental interpretations of this glorious
love-song--surpassed, I think and many others think, by none in the
world--I believe that the concluding stanza means just that. Hope has
rushed on him again from her twin-silence--can she be at one with him in
all, as she is in this? Will the proud dark eyes have forgotten the
pity--and the pride