XVI
Art thou pale for weariness.
—PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
The constellations of summer wheeled above me; and thus between water and starry sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint lustre of the sultry night hung like a mist from heaven to earth. Far away above the countries I had left perhaps for ever, the quiet lightnings played innocently in the heights.
I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by some much ruddier star on the horizon. The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the simple sounds as of fish stirring in the water—the beauty and wonder of Night's dwelling-place seemed beyond content of mortality.
I leaned on my oars in the midst of the deep sea, and seemed to hear, as it were, the mighty shout of Space. Faint and enormous beams of light trembled through the sky. And once I surprised a shadow as of wings sweeping darkly across, star on to glittering star, shaking the air, stilling the sea with the cold dews of night.
So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark of midnight. Weariness began to steal over me. Between sleep and wake I heard strange cries across the deep. The thin silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. A chill mist welled out of the water and shrouded me in faintest gloom. Wherefore, battling no more against such influences, I shipped my oars, made my prayer in the midst of this dark womb of Life, and screening myself as best I could from the airs that soon would be moving before dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the boat and fell asleep.
I slept apparently without dream, and woke as it seemed to the sound of voices singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragrance unknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw with eyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green and still above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight before me, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stone house, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushed upon the cliff by the waterside.
All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, had descended to dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the water; the white dove strutted on the ledge; only the nightingales sang on in the thick arbours.