after that. As long as you've got it at arm's
length, it's all very well. It's interesting then, and you can talk to
your fiddle about it, and make poetry about it,' said Ericson, with a
smile of self-contempt. 'But as soon as the real earnest comes that is
all over. The sea-moan is the cry of a tortured world then. Its hollow
bed is the cup of the world's pain, ever rolling from side to side and
dashing over its lip. Of all that might be, ought to be, nothing to be
had!--I could get music out of it once. Look here. I could trifle like
that once.'

He half rose, then dropped on his chair. But Robert's believing eyes
justified confidence, and Ericson had never had any one to talk to. He
rose again, opened a cupboard at his side, took out some papers, threw
them on the table, and, taking his hat, walked towards the door.

'Which of your strings is broken?' he asked.

'The third,' answered Robert.

'I will get you one,' said Ericson; and before Robert could reply he was
down the stair. Robert heard him cough, then the door shut, and he was
gone in the rain and fog.

Bewildered, unhappy, ready to fly after him, yet irresolute, Robert
almost mechanically turned over the papers upon the little deal table.
He was soon arrested by the following verses, headed:

A NOONDAY MELODY.

Everything goes to its rest;
The hills are asleep in the noon;
And life is as still in its nest
As the moon when she looks on a moon
In the depths of a calm river's breast
As it steals through a midnight in June.

The streams have forgotten the sea
In the dream of their musical sound;
The sunlight is thick on the tree,
And the shadows lie warm on the ground--
So still, you may watch them and see
Every breath that awakens around.

The churchyard lies still in the heat,
With its handful of mouldering bone;
As still as the long stalk of wheat
In the shadow that sits by the stone,
As still as the grass at my feet
When I walk in the meadows alone.

The waves are asleep on the main,
And the ships are asleep on the wave;
And the thoughts are as still in my brain
As the echo that sleeps in the cave;
All rest from their labour and pain--
Then why should not I in my grave?

His heart ready to burst with a sorrow, admiration, and devotion, which
no criticism interfered to qualify, Robert rushed out in