Something had touched his life which, sooner met, might have made existence a boon. A woman’s soul had roused him—but only to a rayless memory of what burned and rankled, as the touch of a hand wakes a prisoner from nightly lethargy to a sense of bolt and chain.
Lines from his poem which she loved—which had called forth her prayer—recurred to him:
“A light broke in upon my brain,—
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased, and then it came again,
The sweetest song ear ever heard;
And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise,
And they that moment could not see
I was the mate of misery;