Here will I bow my head, here will I prostrate myself.
Here will I serve, and here alone is happiness.”
But he beat against marble, for she returned this answer only:
“Child, how lightly dost thou esteem this game of love!
Nothing dost thou know of the fever of longing and the fire of separation, and the burning flame of love!”
Alas, her heart knew them too well!
So he went away despairing and that was the last of her suitors.
Very sad grew my Princess. The dead have more power than the living, and the clutch of a dead hand chills the blood. She had the soul of a mystic and in her poems desire for the Eternal Beloved was mingled with love of him who was now also behind the Veil of non-existence, and I know not which was more in her thoughts when she wrote with tears that fall and falling gather,
“O idle arms,
Never the lost Beloved have ye caressed: