Then all at once there rose a spark of fire up from the earth, and presently a soul hovered all trembling near the second world, as if in doubt whether to enter there. And Christ a second time raised up the earth ball, and the bodily frame from whence this soul had winged its way was lying still on earth, marked with the scars and wounds of a long life. Beside this fallen leafage of the soul a grey old man was standing, and, speaking to the corpse, he said, “I am as old as thou; why must my death be after thine, oh kind and faithful wife? Morning by morning, evening by evening, now, what can I do but think how deep thy grave, how far thy form has crumbled on its course to undistinguished dust, till my time comes to lie and crumble with thee side by side! I am alone! And what a loneliness is mine! For nothing hears me now. She cannot hear! Well! well! To-morrow I shall gaze with such a woe upon her faithful hands and her grey hairs that my poor broken life must snap and end. Oh, thou All-merciful! end it to-day; spare me that last great sorrow.”
Why should it be that, even in old age, when man has grown so weary and oppressed, and has descended to the lowest and last of all the steps that lead him downward to his grave, the spectre, Sorrow, sits so heavy upon him, bowing his head (where every bygone year has left its special thorns) to earth with a new despair?
But the Lord Christ sent not the angel of death with the hand of ice; for he himself looked on the bereaved old man, standing so near him now, with such a glance of glowing solar warmth that the ripe fruit broke from the tree. Like sudden flame his soul burst upwards from his riven heart, and hovering above the second world rejoined that other soul it loved so well; there knit together in silent close embrace, like those of old, they trembled downward into Elysium, where no embrace finds end. And Mary stretched, all love, her hands towards them, and all joy and rapture from her dream, she cried, “Ah, happy pair, ye are together now for evermore.”
But now there rose a pillar of red vapour up on high above the hapless earth, and clung there hiding with its dun folds a battle-field’s loud roar. At length the smoke parted asunder, and two bleeding men were seen lying enlocked in each other’s bleeding arms. They were two grand and glorious friends, and they had sacrificed all to each other, ay! and their very selves,—but not the Fatherland. “Lay thy wounds upon mine, beloved friend. The past lies all behind us now, we can be friends again; thou hast sacrificed me to the Fatherland, as I have thee. Give me thy heart again, ere it bleeds quite away. Alas! we can only die together now.” And each gave to his friend his pierced and wounded heart. But these glorious friends beamed with a lustre such that Death shrank back, and the great berg of ice, wherewith he crushes man, melted away at touching their warm hearts. And the earth kept those two, who rose above her level like two lofty mountains, dowering her with streams, with healing virtues, and with lofty views, she giving only clouds to them in return.
Mary in her dream here glanced and bent her head towards her son, for truly he alone can read, support, and succour hearts like these.
Why does she smile now, like some happy mother? Is it because the earth she loves so well, still rising nearer, seems to hover close above the border of the second world, sweet with the flowers of spring, while nightingales lie brooding, with those burning hearts of theirs pressed on the grasses and the meadow blooms,—the stormy skies all brightening into rainbows? Is it because the earth, never to be forgotten of her heart, now shows so happy and so gay bedecked in its spring dress, radiant in all its flowers, the joy hymn bursting from all its singers’ throats? No, not for this alone; that happy smile breaks over her sleeping face because she sees a mother and her child. For this must be a mother who bends down and holds her arms wide open, and calls in sweet enraptured tones, “Come, darling child, come to my heart again.” This is her child, we see and know, standing all innocence, within the ringing temple of the spring, by his good genius who teaches him—and now goes running up to that smiling form—thus early blest, pressed to that heart overflowing with a mother’s love, scarce understanding the blissful words she speaks. “Oh, dearest child, how thou delightest me. Art thou happy too? Thou lovest me! Oh, look at me, my own, and smile for evermore.”
But now the very blissfulness of her dream woke Mary up; and with a tender tremor she fell upon her own son’s heart, saying with tears, “None, save a mother, knows what it is to love.” And as she spoke the earth sank to its place (where its own æther flowed around its orb), and with it that glad mother with her arms about her child.
And all this bliss bursting upon my heart dissolved my dream. And I awoke—but nothing had truly changed or passed away; for the mother of my dream still clasped her child close to her heart here on earth’s face; she reads my dream, and, for its truth, forgives, perchance, the dreamer who tells his tale.