ody wrote, and no man saw
acted, and which the actors themselves will speedily forget. Think of
the thistle-downiest thing you ever saw, the most fleeting: the glow
that rises in the sunset sky and flees before the sight. That is what I
mean when I say you are dear to me. Do not make me repent having said
it.

[Sidenote: _Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose_]

June was it, June, sweet mistress of the changing year,
(She of the brow serene, unpressed by cypress fear,
Nor darkened under bitter bud and leaf
By earth's old travail and the gray world's grief,--
Delighted by her changeful diadem
And fringed with roses round her mantle hem,)
Who laid thy hand in mine,
And said, with voice divine,
Like low-toned winds that wander to and fro
Searching out reedy pipes wherein to blow:
"This is your sacrament.
Drink ye, and be content.
This is life's flowering.
Now are ye queen and king."

O thought too poor and pale!
O words that wanly fail
For godlike Love's divine expressing,
And all the rhythm of his sweet confessing,
Whose full-voiced cry should be
Harmonious ecstasy.

Now are ye rulers of the upper air;
And though men surge below, not one shall dare
To scale the summit of your mystic height,
Nor breathe your breath, nor face your burning light.
The seed shall break for you, the seasons pass,
And you, serene, shall view as in a glass
The moving pageant of the happy year,
Fleeting from naked twig and garment sere,
To wrap itself in snows, to dream and dream
On budding boughs, and all the elusive gleam
Of happy rivers kissed
By sweet, bewildering mist.
And so to dream again, and rise in power
To the full glory of a new birth-hour.
The earth is thine, the starry spaces even,
The hour is thine, and maketh its own heaven--

I to write a marriage song, I! Shall mortal man hymn worthily his own
love? Yet here is the initial note, the first faint stammering.
Remember this, my love, my lady, my soul,--if I had known what your
consent would be, I could never have waited for it all these years,
here in the still woods. I should have died of hunger. Think of it! one
only can bring bread for me, one only give me to drink. Be merciful to
me, my bread-giver! One word--not on paper! One minute--let me see you
alone!

[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]

Do not write verse until