wn. As she read on, her
surroundings gradually faded, and soon there lay about her only the
mists of dream; the purple, star-strown mists beyond Time, where only
gods and dreamers walk.

"Moon over Japan,
White butterfly moon!
Where the heavy-lidded Buddhas dream
To the sound of the cuckoo's call....
The white wings of moon-butterflies
Flicker down the streets of the city,
Blushing into darkness the useless wicks of round lanterns in the
hands of girls.

"Moon over the tropics,
A white-curved bud
Opening its petals slowly in the warmth of heaven....
The air is full of odours
And languorous warm sounds....
A flute drones its insect music to the night
Below the curving moon-petal of the heavens.

"Moon over China,
Weary moon on the river of the sky,
The stir of light in the willows is like the flashing of a thousand
silver minnows
Through dark shoals;
The tiles on graves and rotting temples flash like ripples,
The sky is flecked with clouds like the scales of a dragon."

Amid the mists of dream the reader cried to the rhythmical stars of her
delight at the coming of a new age of song, a rebirth of Pan. Half
closing her eyes, she repeated words whose melody lay hid like crystals
at the bottom of a stream before the dawn; hidden but to gleam
effulgently at the birth of day.

"Moon over Japan,
White butterfly moon!

"Moon over the tropics,
A white-curved bud
Opening its petals slowly in the warmth of heaven.
The air is full of odours
And languorous warm sounds ... languorous warm sounds.

"Moon over China,
Weary moon on the river of the sky ... weary moon!"

* * *

Out of the mists gleamed godlike the figure of a youth in winged helmet
and sandals, caduceus-bearing, and of a beauty like to nothing on earth.
Before the face of the sleeper he thrice waved the rod which Apollo had
given him in trade for the nine-corded shell of melody, and upon her
brow he placed a wreath of myrtle and roses. Then, adoring, Hermes
spoke:

"O Nymph more fair than the golden-haired sisters of Cyane or the
sky-inhabiting Atlantides, beloved of Aphrodite and blessed of Pallas,
thou hast indeed discovered the secret of the Gods, which lieth in
beauty and song. O Prophetess more lovely than the Sybil of Cumae when
Apollo first knew her, thou hast truly spoken of the new