ain him from lamenting his dear
Maiden aloud, as one who deemed himself in the empty wilderness: and thus
he lamented for her sweetness and her loveliness, and the kindness of her
voice and her speech, and her mirth. Then he fell to crying out
concerning the beauty of her shaping, praising the parts of her body, as
her face, and her hands, and her shoulders, and her feet, and cursing the
evil fate which had sundered him from the friendliness of her, and the
peerless fashion of her.

CHAPTER XXX: NOW THEY MEET AGAIN

Complaining thus-wise, he fell asleep from sheer weariness, and when he
awoke it was broad day, calm and bright and cloudless, with the scent of
the earth refreshed going up into the heavens, and the birds singing
sweetly in the bushes about him: for the dale whereunto he was now come
was a fair and lovely place amidst the shelving slopes of the mountains,
a paradise of the wilderness, and nought but pleasant and sweet things
were to be seen there, now that the morn was so clear and sunny.

He arose and looked about him, and saw where, a hundred yards aloof, was
a thicket of small wood, as thorn and elder and whitebeam, all wreathed
about with the bines of wayfaring tree; it hid a bight of the stream,
which turned round about it, and betwixt it and Walter was the grass
short and thick, and sweet, and all beset with flowers; and he said to
himself that it was even such a place as wherein the angels were leading
the Blessed in the great painted paradise in the choir of the big church
at Langton on Holm. But lo! as he looked he cried aloud for joy, for
forth from the thicket on to the flowery grass came one like to an angel
from out of the said picture, white-clad and bare-foot, sweet of flesh,
with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks; for it was the Maid herself. So he
ran to her, and she abode him, holding forth kind hands to him, and
smiling, while she wept for joy of the meeting. He threw himself upon
her, and spared not to kiss her, her cheeks and her mouth, and her arms
and her shoulders, and wheresoever she would suffer it. Till at last she
drew aback a little, laughing on him for love, and said: "Forbear now,
friend, for it is enough for this time, and tell me how thou hast sped."

"Ill, ill," said he.

"What ails thee?" she said.

"Hunger," he said, "and longing for thee."

"Well," she said, "me thou hast; there is one ill quenched; take my hand,
and we will see to the other one."

So he