To a stone seat beside a spring,
O’er which the columned wood did frame
A roofless temple, like the fane
Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
Man’s early race once knelt beneath
The overhanging Deity.’
She read on. The scene suited the poem, and its deep melancholy harmonized but too well with her own feelings. A story of love, the fondest, truest, most unworldly, ending in hopeless sorrow. Never had the gloom of that poem sunk so heavily upon her spirit.
She closed the book suddenly, with a half-stifled sob. The moon was rising, silver pale, above the dark ridge of moorland. The last streak of golden light had faded behind the red trunks of the firs. The low, melancholy cry of an owl sounded far off in the dark heart of the wood. It was indeed as if—
‘The owls had all fled far away,
In a merrier glen to hoot and play.’