ore. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted energy
into the countenance--the limbs relaxed--and, save that the eyelids were
yet pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and draperies of the
grave still imparted their charnel character to the figure, I might
have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly, the fetters of
Death. But if this idea was not, even then, altogether adopted, I could
at least doubt no longer, when, arising from the bed, tottering, with
feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in
a dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into
the middle of the apartment.

I trembled not--I stirred not--for a crowd of unutterable fancies
connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure, rushing
hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed--had chilled me into stone. I
stirred not--but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad disorder
in my thoughts--a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the
living Rowena who confronted me? Could it indeed be Rowena at all--the
fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine? Why, why
should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the mouth--but then
might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the
cheeks-there were the roses as in her noon of life--yes, these might
indeed be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine. And the chin,
with its dimples, as in health, might it not be hers?--but had she then
grown taller since her malady? What inexpressible madness seized me with
that thought? One bound, and I had reached her feet! Shrinking from my
touch, she let fall from her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements
which had confined it, and there streamed forth, into the rushing
atmosphere of the chamber, huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; it
was blacker than the raven wings of the midnight! And now slowly opened
the eyes of the figure which stood before me. "Here then, at least,"
I shrieked aloud, "can I never--can I never be mistaken--these are the
full, and the black, and the wild eyes--of my lost love--of the lady--of
the LADY LIGEIA."

MORELLA

Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.

PLATO: SYMPOS.

WITH a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my friend
Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my soul
from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never before known;