"Out of doors into the night!
On to the maze
Of the wild wood-ways,
Not turning to left nor right
From the pathway, blind with sight—
Swifter and still more swift,
As the crowding peace
Doth to joy increase
In the wild blind eyes uplift
Thro' the darkness and the drift!"
And he will sit so, feeling his soul dilate, and no muscle shall be relaxed as he sees his belief come true, and more and more she takes shape for him, so that she shall be, when she does come, altered even from what she was at his first seeming to "have and hold her"—for the lips glow, the cheek burns, the hair, from its plait, breaks loose, and spreads with "a rich outburst, chestnut gold-interspersed," and the arms open wide "like the doors of a casket-shrine," as she comes, comes, comes . . .
"'Now—now'—the door is heard!
Hark, the stairs! and near—
Nearer—and here—
'Now!' and at call the third
She enters without a word!"
* * * * *
Could a woman ever forget the man who should do that with her! Would she not almost be ready, in such an hour, to die as Porphyria died?
But in Porphyria's Lover, not so great a spirit speaks. This man, too, sitting in his room alone, thinks of the woman he loves, and she comes to him; but here it is her own will that drives through wind and rain—there is no compelling glory from the man uncertain still of passion's answering passion.
"The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria." . . .
She glided in and did not speak. She looked round his cottage, then kneeled and made the dying fire blaze up. When all the place was warm, she rose and put off her dripping cloak and shawl, the hat, the soiled gloves; she let her rain-touched hair fall loose,
"And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,