were straining
under what was equivalent to forced draught. On the previous day it
would have little surprised me at any moment, while I drove her, to be
carried to the clouds in an explosion from her deep-rusted steel tanks:
but this day such a fear never crossed my mind: for I knew very well
that I was immortal till I saw her.

The sea was not only perfectly smooth, but placid, as on the previous
day: only it seemed far placider, and the sun brighter, and there was a
levity in the breezes that frilled the sea in fugitive dark patches,
like _frissons_ of tickling; and I thought that the morning was a true
marriage-morning, and remembered that it was a Sabbath; and sweet odours
our wedding would not lack of peach and almond, though, looking
eastward, I could see no faintest sign of any purple cloud, but only
rags of chiffon under the sun; and it would be an eternal wedding, for
one day in our sight would be as a thousand years, and our thousand
years of bliss would be but one day, and in the evening of all that
eternity death would come and sweetly lay its finger upon our languid
lids, and we should die of weary bliss; and all manner of dancings and
singings--fandango and light galliard, corantoes and the solemn
gavotte--were a-tune in my heart that happy day; and running by the
chart-house to the wheel, I saw under the table a great roll of old
flags, and presently they were flying in a long curve of gala from the
main; and the sea rumpled in a long tract of tumbling milk behind me;
and I hasted homeward, to meet my heart.

* * * * *

No purple cloud could I see as, on and on, for two hours, I tore
southward: but at hot noon, on the weather beam I spied through the
glass across the water something else which moved, and it was you who
came to me, Oh Leda, my spirit's breath!

I bore down upon her, waving: and soon I saw her stand like an ancient
mariner, but in white muslins that fluttered, at her wheel on the
bridge--it was one of those little old Havre-Antwerp craft very high in
the bows--and she waved a little white thing. And we came nearer, till I
could spy her face, her smile, and I shouted her to stop, and in a
minute stopped myself, and by happy steering came with slowing headway
to a slight crash by her side, and ran down the trellised steps to her,
and led her up; and on the deck, without saying a word, I fell to my
knees before her, and I bowed my brow to the floor, with ob