length rounded the islet and
re-entered the region of light. "The revolution which has just been made
by the Fay," continued I, musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of
her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She
is a year nearer unto Death; for I did not fail to see that, as she came
into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the
dark water, making its blackness more black."

And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the
latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy.
She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened
momently) and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and
became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the
circuit of the island, (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and
at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person,
while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each
passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became
whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length when the sun had
utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went
disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and
that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over an
things and I beheld her magical figure no more.

THE ASSIGNATION

Stay for me there! I will not fail.
To meet thee in that hollow vale.

[_Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King,
Bishop of Chichester_.]

ILL-FATED and mysterious man!--bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own
imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth! Again in fancy
I behold thee! Once more thy form hath risen before me!--not--oh not
as thou art--in the cold valley and shadow--but as thou _shouldst
be_--squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city of
dim visions, thine own Venice--which is a star-beloved Elysium of the
sea, and the wide windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a
deep and bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I
repeat it--as thou _shouldst be_. There are surely other worlds
than this--other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude--other
speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call
thy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or
denounce those occupations as a