"Kneeling over my prostrate form I could distinguish the figure of a man, and knew that my lover still watched and waited. Otherwise the temple was deserted. Then I heard Alan speak.
"'Vera, come back! Would that it were possible for my spirit to come to yours, but it may not be. Can you not trust me? Can you doubt my love? Oh! before it is too late, return! Must we again be parted even when it seemed that the time had at last arrived for our eternal union?'
"In a moment I had regained my bodily form. I rose, dazed by my long trance, and fell upon my knees before my lover who now stood over me, his face radiant with joy.
"'Forgive me,' I cried, 'forgive me!'"
Vera paused, and Sydney turned to me with a smile.
"Rather a difficult request, was it not?"
I looked at the exquisite face of the girl before me and said, "Sydney, mysterious though it seems, God's wondrous wisdom must have been manifested to you at such a moment."
"'Yes," he replied, "if man never passed through darkness into light, through sin into holiness, God could never love us as he does, could never feel the joy with which such a prayer must fill his soul."
After talking for some little time longer we passed to the other room. Vera had promised to sing to me before they went. She sung the following song; the music, the strange unearthly beauty of her voice, are beyond my words to describe. I listened with closed eyes; earth, for the moment, seemed to slip away from me, and the gates of heaven to be thrown open.
When Love's fair flower uncloses,
And Pain has lost her hold,
When Grief for once reposes,
And Joy's bright wings unfold,
Listen! Listen! as you pass along!
Sweetly, yet how softly, Hope breathes forth her song!
No longer drowned by tumult,
Her never silent voice
Shall whisper on for ever,
"Rejoice! and still rejoice!"
She sings to children sleeping;
She lies on Love's light breath,
Faith weaves her words with weeping,
To form the song of death.
Listen! Listen! you will hear her say,
"Joy shall last for ever, Grief must pass away."
The lost still linger near you,
Oh! lift with them your voice,
To swell our joyful chorus,
"Rejoice! and still rejoice!"
And as our souls grow nearer
Souls in the world above,
Ever the song grows clearer,
Till life is lost in love!
Waken! Listen! Still the same glad strain!
Deeper now and fuller! swells the glad refrain!
Till with the host of Heaven,
We also raise our voice,
And hear earth's distant echo,
"Rejoice! and still rejoice!"