Where galaxies like snow are driven.”
And lo! it was to his own music that the very spheres were moving.
“A Ballad of Hell” tells the story of a woman’s love and a woman’s courage. Her lover writes her that he must go to prison, unless he marries, the next day, his cousin whom he abhors. There is no refuge but in death; and by her love he conjures her to kill herself at midnight, and meet him, though it must be in Hell. She waited till sleep had fallen on the house. Then out into the night she went, hurried to the trysting oak, and there she drove her dagger home into her heart, and fell on sleep. She woke in Hell. The devil was quite ready to welcome her; but she answered him only—
“‘I am young Malespina’s bride;
Has he come hither yet?’”
But Malespina had turned coward, when the supreme test came, and he was to marry his cousin on the morrow. For long, and long, she would not believe; but when long waiting brought certainty, at last, she cried—
“‘I was betrayed. I will not stay.’”
And straight across the gulf between Hell and Heaven she walked:—
“To her it seemed a meadow fair;
And flowers sprang up about her feet;