m my knees, had retreated a little way,
so that the effect of the whole might fall on me, I saw before me
with sufficient plainness--though at the same time with considerable
indistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light the place
admitted, as well as from the nature of the object itself--a block of
pure alabaster enclosing the form, apparently in marble, of a reposing
woman. She lay on one side, with her hand under her cheek, and her face
towards me; but her hair had fallen partly over her face, so that I
could not see the expression of the whole. What I did see appeared to
me perfectly lovely; more near the face that had been born with me in
my soul, than anything I had seen before in nature or art. The actual
outlines of the rest of the form were so indistinct, that the more than
semi-opacity of the alabaster seemed insufficient to account for
the fact; and I conjectured that a light robe added its obscurity.
Numberless histories passed through my mind of change of substance from
enchantment and other causes, and of imprisonments such as this before
me. I thought of the Prince of the Enchanted City, half marble and half
a man; of Ariel; of Niobe; of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood; of the
bleeding trees; and many other histories. Even my adventure of the
preceding evening with the lady of the beech-tree contributed to arouse
the wild hope, that by some means life might be given to this form also,
and that, breaking from her alabaster tomb, she might glorify my eyes
with her presence. "For," I argued, "who can tell but this cave may be
the home of Marble, and this, essential Marble--that spirit of marble
which, present throughout, makes it capable of being moulded into any
form? Then if she should awake! But how to awake her? A kiss awoke
the Sleeping Beauty! a kiss cannot reach her through the incrusting
alabaster." I kneeled, however, and kissed the pale coffin; but she
slept on. I bethought me of Orpheus, and the following stones--that
trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising now. Might not a
song awake this form, that the glory of motion might for a time displace
the loveliness of rest? Sweet sounds can go where kisses may not enter.
I sat and thought. Now, although always delighting in music, I had never
been gifted with the power of song, until I entered the fairy forest. I
had a voice, and I had a true sense of sound; but when I tried to sing,
the one would not content the other, and so