CHAPTER LXXIII.
The moment of enthusiasm was past; the setting sun warned every straggler and passenger to return. Some had a far distant home to seek; others had left their wives or their children. Elinor turned from the golden light which illuminated the west, and gazed in agony upon the gloomy battlements of St. Alvin Priory, yet resplendent with the last parting ray. Of all who followed her, few only now remained to watch her steps. She bade them meet her at the cavern at the accustomed hour. She was weary, and feigned that till then she would sleep. This she did to disembarrass herself of them.
Upon raising herself after a little time, they were gone. It was dark—it was lonely. She sat and mused upon the cliff, till the pale moon broke through the clouds, and tipped every wave with its soft and silvery light.—“The moon shines bright and fair,” she said: “the shadows pass over it. Will my lover come again to me? It is thy voice, Glenarvon, which sings sweetly and mournfully in the soft breeze of night.”
My heart’s fit to break, yet no tear fills my eye,
As I gaze on the moon, and the clouds that flit by.
The moon shines so fair, it reminds me of thee;
But the clouds that obscure it, are emblems of me.
They will pass like the dream of our pleasures and youth;
They will pass like the promise of honor and truth;
And bright thou shalt shine, when these shadows are gone,
All radiant—serene—unobscur’d; but alone.
“And did he pass me so coldly by? And did he not once look on me?” she said. “But I will not weep: he shall not break my spirit and heart. Let him do so to the tame doves for whom he has forsaken me. Let such as Alice and Calantha die for his love: I will not.”—She took her harp: her voice was tired and feeble. She faintly murmured the feelings of her troubled soul. It sounded like the wind, as it whispered through the trees, or the mournful echo of some far distant flute.