s
into the mellow bassoon; or rouses the heroic ardours of the trumpet;
or, it may be, commands the whole Orchestra for them. And they are
pleased. He is still the cunning musician. They languish, and taste
ecstasy: but it is, however sonorous, an earthly concert. For them the
spheres move not to two notes. They have lost, or forfeited and never
known, the first super-sensual spring of the ripe senses into passion;
when they carry the soul with them, and have the privileges of spirits
to walk disembodied, boundlessly to feel. Or one has it, and the other
is a dead body. Ambrosia let them eat, and drink the nectar: here sit a
couple to whom Love's simple bread and water is a finer feast.

Pipe, happy sheep-bop, Love! Irradiated angels, unfold your wings and
lift your voices!

They have out-flown philosophy. Their instinct has shot beyond the ken
of science. They were made for their Eden.

"And this divine gift was in store for me!"

So runs the internal outcry of each, clasping each: it is their
recurring refrain to the harmonies. How it illumined the years gone by
and suffused the living Future!

"You for me: I for you!"

"We are born for each other!"

They believe that the angels have been busy about them from their
cradles. The celestial hosts have worthily striven to bring them
together. And, O victory! O wonder! after toil and pain, and
difficulties exceeding, the celestial hosts have succeeded!

"Here we two sit who are written above as one!"

Pipe, happy Love! pipe on to these dear innocents!

The tide of colour has ebbed from the upper sky. In the West the sea
of sunken fire draws back; and the stars leap forth, and tremble, and
retire before the advancing moon, who slips the silver train of cloud
from her shoulders, and, with her foot upon the pine-tops, surveys
heaven.

"Lucy, did you never dream of meeting me?"

"O Richard! yes; for I remembered you."

"Lucy! and did you pray that we might meet?"

"I did!"

Young as when she looked upon the lovers in Paradise, the fair Immortal
journeys onward. Fronting her, it is not night but veiled day. Full half
the sky is flushed. Not darkness, not day, but the nuptials of the two.

"My own! my own for ever! You are pledged to me? Whisper!"

He hears the delicious music.

"And you are mine?"

A soft beam travels to the fern-covert under the pinewood where they
sit, and for answer he has her eyes turned to him an instant, timidly
fluttering over t