rushes at last to meet him and they
are gathered in each other's arms. So over-great is their joy that
neither can believe the witness of his senses; nothing so good
could be true as that this verily which can be seen and clasped
should be the so sorely desired one. They vent themselves in such
childish, fond, incredulous exclamations as: Is it you yourself?
Are they your eyes? Are they your lips? Have I here your hand?
Have I here your heart? Is it I? Is it you? Do I hold you close?
Is it no fancy? Is it no dream? And, as if finally convinced, they
burst forth in a hymn of thanksgiving and joy.

"The light! The light! Oh, that light!" the lover voices his grudge
against it. "How long ere it went out! The sun sank, day departed,
but the ill-will of the Day was still unsated. It lit a fearful
danger-signal and fastened it at the beloved's door, to prevent
me coming to her!"--"But the hand of the beloved extinguished the
light," Isolde pacifies him; "What the handmaid refused, I feared
not to do. At the command and under the protection of Great Love,
I cried defiance to the Day!"--"The Day! The Day! the malignant
Day!" he inveighs; "To that implacable enemy hate and reproach!
Oh, might I, even as you quenched the light, put out the torches
of the insolent Day, in vengeance for all the sufferings of love!"

There is a great deal in the often fanciful, yet ever earnest,
conversation between the lovers, about the Day and the Night; the
Day being devoted to their hate, the Night to their worship. It
is not only, however, that the day divides them, and their trysts
belong to the night. They make the image of Day to stand for falsehood
and evil illusion, while Night represents truth. The reason of
this is not far to seek. Their love is not like the love of other
mortals. Inevitably in the latter many elements enter. Will controls
it, at least to some extent; reason guides and bounds it; sense
of humour even qualifies it. A thousand things besides love find
room in the most enamoured human heart and brain: other persons,
pursuits, interests,--what Rossetti calls "all life's confederate
pleas, work, contest, fame." The many-sided nature of man is appealed
to by myriad things. Only for brief moments do lovers stand on the
high peaks of pure passion where Tristan and Isolde perpetually
reside. Love they never so truly, lovers who have not quaffed the
magic potion love great part of the time almost unconsciously, in
a divine und