Unto thine ear I hold the dead sea-shell
Cast up thy Life’s foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life’s form and Love’s, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unuttered, the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am!
—D. G. Rossetti.
It was mid-April and the afternoon of a day of perfect weather, of summer rather than spring.
The hills around Fraternia were covered now in sheets of flame-colour, white and rose, from the blossoming of the wild azalea and laurel. The air was laden with perfume and flooded with sunshine.