or which closed behind them; but, ere it closed,
I saw that the room into which it opened was a rich chamber, hung with
gorgeous arras. I stood with an ocean of sighs frozen in my bosom. I
could remain no longer. She was near me, and I could not see her; near
me in the arms of one loved better than I, and I would not see her, and
I would not be by her. But how to escape from the nearness of the best
beloved? I had not this time forgotten 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 singing, 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 gray soul,
That moans like a wounded dove?
One wine is left in the broken bowl!--
'Tis--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.

Be thy heart a well of love, my child,
Flowing, and free, and sure;
For a cistern of love, though undefiled,
Keeps not the spirit pure.

I rose from the earth, loving the white lady as I had never loved her
before.

Then I walked up to the door of Dismay, and opened it, and went out. And
lo! I came forth upon a crowded street, where men and women went to
and fro in multitudes. I knew it well; and, turning to one hand, walked
sadly along the pavement. Suddenly I saw approaching me, a little way
off, a form well known to me (WELL-KNOWN!--alas, how weak the word!) in
the years when I thought my boyhood was left behind, and shortly before
I entered the realm of Fairy Land.