he waters, as they wound
through their shagged banks. And deep, dark, rushing, even at that still
hour, went the stream through the boughs that swept over its surface.
Here and there the banks suddenly shelved down, mingling with the waves;
then abruptly they rose, overspread with thick and tangled umbrage,
several feet above the level of the river.

"How strange it is," said Godolphin, "that at times a feeling comes over
us, as we gaze upon certain places, which associates the scene either
with some dim-remembered and dream-like images of the Past, or with
a prophetic and fearful omen of the Future! As I gaze now upon this
spot--those banks--that whirling river--it seems as if my destiny
claimed a mysterious sympathy with the scene: when--how-wherefore--I
know not--guess not: only this shadowy and chilling sentiment
unaccountably creeps over me. Every one has known a similar strange,
indistinct, feeling at certain times and places, and with a similar
inability to trace the cause. And yet, is it not singular that in
poetry, which wears most feelings to an echo, I leave never met with any
attempt to describe it?"

"Because poetry," said Constance, "is, after all, but a hackneyed
imitation of the most common thoughts, giving them merely a gloss by the
brilliancy of verse. And yet how little poets _know!_ They _imagine,_
and they _imitate;_--behold all their secrets!"

"Perhaps you are right," said Godolphin, musingly; "and I, who have
often vainly fancied I had the poetical temperament, have been so
chilled and sickened by the characteristics of the tribe, that I have
checked its impulses with a sort of disdain; and thus the Ideal, having
no vent in me, preys within, creating a thousand undefined dreams and
unwilling superstitions, making me enamoured of the Shadowy and Unknown,
and dissatisfying me with the petty ambitions of the world."

"You will awake hereafter," said Constance, earnestly.

Godolphin shook his head, and replied not.

Their way now lay along a green lane that gradually wound round a hill
commanding a view of great richness and beauty. Cottages, and spires,
and groves, gave life--but it was scattered and remote life--to the
scene; and the broad stream, whose waves, softened in the distance, did
not seem to break the even surface of the tide, flowed onward, glowing
in the sunlight, till it was lost among dark and luxuriant woods.

Both once more arrested their horses by a common impulse, and both