He reached his arms up to her, but her face had faded and he could see only the moon high above, a dim white light steady, clear, and cold.
He lay in the green rushes and saw the face of a water nymph laughing at him through the parted reeds. He stood within the vaulted chambers of a mighty castle where ghosts of dreams he dreamt which never came true, paced to and fro before him. At last he stood alone in a great lonely place, vastness about him and vastness below him. And then the moon fell beside him and he saw that she was a maid clad in silver cobwebs and sheen and that across her eyes was a mask of cloud. She put her lips to his and, though her lips were still, she sang:
“Night has been pierced and dawn’s scarlet
Runs from the wound.”
He awoke with a start. The mists of morning lay about. The saint in his corner was smiling, or was it a ray of sunlight which lay across his lips? The mists were shot with amber and gold. It was morning.
PHILIP J. D. VAN DYKE.
Echo
As through the park at dusk we went,