ngs for you, my queen.

But songs and starfire, pomp of night,
Murmur of trees and Ocean's roll,
Were poor beside the blind delight--
The Love that quivered in my soul.

Further on there is a single brief verse like a cry of rage and
despair:--

And is it then the End of all?
O, Father! What a doom is mine--
An unreturning prodigal,
Who feeds on husks and herds with swine!

After many ravings the torn soul seems to grow calm, and we have this
pensive and tender fragment of music:--

The dreams that fill the thoughtful night,
All holy dreams are in the sky,
They stoop to me with viewless flight,
And bid me wave my care good-bye.

Spread your dim wings, O sacred friends,
Fleet softly to your starry place;
I'll meet you as my journey ends,
When I shall crave our Master's grace.

Till I may join your shadowy band
I'll think of things that are to be--
The far-off joy, the Unseen Land,
The Lover I shall never see.

After this our man plunges into the slums, and we have no more poetry.
One who loved him asked me to go through his journals, and nearly all I
know of him is derived from them. By chance I have heard that he was
passionately fond of children, but avoided women. One who knew him said
that he was witty, and often strung off epigrams by the hour together,
but he was always subject to fits of blind frenzy, during which his wit
and his genuine sagacity left him. No one followed him to his grave; but
he was visited in hospital by a tall, fair lady, who gazed on him with
stern composure. He sneered even while dying. "I'm a pretty object, am I
not? I was going to shake the world. Will you kiss me once?"

The tall lady stooped and kissed him; he gasped, "Thank you. It was more
than I deserved. And now for the Dark."

The lady sighed a little and went away, and I think that a bunch of
heather which lay on the coffin must have come from her. Anyway, that is
all I know about the Loafer, and he may now tell his story of the Pink
Tom Cat in his own way. You observe how drily circumstantial he is.

* * * * *

I shall not be able to go on with Billy Devine's story for some time. We
have had an ugly business here, and it is now two months since I wrote a
line. It was only by making special inquiry that I found how time had
gone, for I have been living in a nightmare.

One fine morn