, as it drew nearer,
became Rosamond's voice--at last she herself was before him,
unrecognisable, alone, without solace, without a tear, without colour.

And Rosamond dreamed upon the earth, and it was to her as though the
sun took wings, and became an angel. This angel, she dreamed, drew
down towards her the moon, which became a gentle face. Beneath this
face, as it approached her, a heart at last formed itself. It was
Eugenius, and his beloved arose to meet him. But as she exclaimed,
with transport, "Now I am dead!" the two dreams, both hers and his,
vanished, and the two were again severed.

Eugenius waked above, the glimmering earth still stood in the sky, his
heart was oppressed, and his eye beamed with a tear which had not
fallen on the moon. Rosamond waked below, and a large warm dew-drop
hung in one of the flowers of her bosom. Then did the last mist of her
soul shower down in a light rain of tears, her soul became light and
sun-clear, and her eye hung gently on the dawning sky; the earth was
indeed strange to her, but no longer hateful; and her hands moved as
though they were leading those who had died.

The angel of rest looked upon the moon, and looked upon the earth, and
he was softened by the sighs from both. On the morning-earth he
perceived an eclipse of the sun, and a bereft one; he saw Rosamond
during this transient night sink upon the flowers that slept in the
darkness, and into the cold evening-dew which fell upon the
morning-dew, and stretching forth her hands towards the shaded heaven,
which was full of night-birds, look up towards the moon with
inexpressible longing, as it floated trembling in the sun. The angel
looked upon the moon, and near him wept the departed one, who saw the
earth swimming deep below,--a flood of shade, fitted into a ring of
fire, and from whom the mourning form that dwelt upon it, took all the
happiness of heaven. Then was the heavenly heart of the angel of peace
broken--he seized the hand of Eugenius and that of his child--drew both
through the second world, and bore them down to the dark earth.
Rosamond saw three forms wandering through the obscurity, the gleam
from whom reached the starry heaven, and went along hovering over them.
Her beloved and her child flew like spring-days to her heart, and said,
"Oh, thou dear one, come with us!" Her maternal heart broke with
maternal love, the circulation of earth-blood was stopped, her life was
ended; and happily, hap