Thou shalt bear thy love in thy bosom as thou helpest the earth-folk's
need:
Thou shalt wake to it dawning by dawning; thou shalt sleep and it shall
not be strange:
There is none shall thrust between us till our earthly lives shall
change.
Ah, my love shall fare as a banner in the hand of thy renown,
In the arms of thy fame accomplished shall it lie when we lay us adown.
O deathless fame of Sigurd! O glory of my lord!
O birth of the happy Brynhild to the measureless reward!"
So they sat as the day grew dimmer, and they looked on days to come,
And the fair tale speeding onward, and the glories of their home;
And they saw their crowned children and the kindred of the kings,
And deeds in the world arising and the day of better things:
All the earthly exaltation, till their pomp of life should be passed,
And soft on the bosom of God their love should be laid at the last.'

And on the page facing this lies a pressed flower--there used to be
two--guarded by these tender rhymes:--

'Whoe'er shall read this mighty song
In some forthcoming evensong,
We pray thee guard these simple flowers,
For, gentle Reader, they are "ours."'

But ill has some 'gentle Reader' attended to the behest, for, as I said,
but one of the flowers remains. One is lost--and Narcissus has gone
away. This inscription is but one of many such scattered here and there
through his books, for he had a great facility in such minor graces, as
he had a neat hand at tying a bow. I don't think he ever sent a box of
flowers without his fertility serving him with some rose-leaf fancy to
accompany them; and on birthdays and all red-letter days he was always
to be counted upon for an appropriate rhyme. If his art served no other
purpose, his friend would be grateful to him for that alone, for many
great days would have gone without their 'white stone' but for him;
when, for instance, J.A.W. took that brave plunge of his, which has
since so abundantly justified him and more than fulfilled prophecy; or
when Samuel Dale took that bolder, namely a wife, he being a
philosopher--incidents, Reader, on which I long so to digress, and for
which, if you could only know beforehand, you would, I am sure, give me
freest hand. But beautiful stories both, I may not tell of you here;
though if the Reader and I ever spend together those hinted nights at
the 'Mermaid,' I then may.

But to return. I said above