Streaking some cliff wreck-gorged; her hair and eyes
Send forth a glare half sunshine and half lightning.”
At last falls that memorable feast of St. Stephen, and the end comes.
“The man is changed. Seldom he speaks; his smile
Is like that smile upon a dead man’s face,
A mystery of sweetness.”
The saint is already looking beyond this world. Standing at the window, as we are told he stood, he looks out and beholds the ground robed in snow. Here is how his poet makes him speak of it:
“How fair, how still, that snowy world! The earth
Lies like a white rose under eyes of God;
May it send up a sweetness!”