"Thine eyes are like mine, and thou art bold;
Nay, heap not the dying fire;
It warms not me, I am too cold,
Cold as the churchyard spire;
If thou cover me up with fold on fold,
Thou kill'st not the coldness dire."
Her voice and her beauty, like molten gold,
Thrilled through him in burning rain.
He was on fire, and she was cold,
Cold as the waveless main;
But his heart-well filled with woe, till it rolled
A torrent that calmed him again.
"Save me, Oh, save me!" she cried; and flung
Her splendour before his feet;—
"I am weary of wandering storms among,
And I hate the mouldy sheet;
I can dare the dark, wind-vexed and wrung,
Not the dark where the dead things meet.
"Ah! though a ghost, I'm a lady still—"
The youth recoiled aghast.
With a passion of sorrow her great eyes fill;
Not a word her white lips passed.
He caught her hand; 'twas a cold to kill,
But he held it warm and fast.
"What can I do to save thee, dear?"
At the word she sprang upright.
To her ice-lips she drew his burning ear,
And whispered—he shivered—she whispered light.
She withdrew; she gazed with an asking fear;
He stood with a face ghost-white.
"I wait—ah, would I might wait!" she said;
"But the moon sinks in the tide;
Thou seest it not; I see it fade,
Like one that may not bide.
Alas! I go out in the moonless shade;
Ah, kind! let me stay and hide."
He shivered, he shook, he felt like clay;
And the fear went through his blood;
His face was an awful ashy grey,
And his veins were channels of mud.
The lady stood in a white dismay,
Like a half-blown frozen bud.
"Ah, speak! am I so frightful then?
I live; though they call it death;
I am only cold—say dear again"—
But scarce could he heave a breath;
The air felt dank, like a frozen fen,
And he a half-conscious wraith.
"Ah, save me!" once more, with a hopeless cry,
That entered his heart, and lay;
But sunshine and warmth and rosiness vie
With coldness and moonlight and grey.
He spoke not. She moved not; yet to his eye,
She stood three paces away.
She spoke no more. Grief on her face
Beauty had almost slain.
With a feverous vision's unseen pace
She had flitted away again;
And stood, with a last dumb prayer for grace,
By the window that clanged with rain.