ped her white array; she was jewel-less
and stripped of lustre; she was like pearl, milky as a shell, white as
the moonlight that followed in her wake.

"You breathed my name,--I came," she said.

"Pardon!" I replied. "I heard the fountains dash and the nightingales
sing, and I but came for rest under the spell."

"And have you found it?"

"I have found it."

We remained silent then, while floods of passion gathered and lay darkly
still in our hearts. No, no! I know now that it was not so; yet I will
tell it, tell it all, as I thought it then.

She did not stir; indeed, she had such capability of rest, that, had I
not spoken, she would never have stirred, it may be. She knew that my
glance was upon her; for herself, she looked at the broad lilies that
grew at her feet, and listened to the melody that seemed to bubble from
a thousand throats with interfluent sound upon the night. It was her
repose that soothed me: moulded clay is not so calm, the marble rose of
silence not half so beautifully folded to dreamful rest, so lovely
and so still no garden-statue could have been; the cool, soft night
infiltrated its tranquillity through all her being.

As we stood, the nightingales gave us capricious pause; one alone,
distant and clear, fluted its faint piping like the phantom of the
finished strain. Another sound broke the air and floated along on this
too delicious accompaniment: music, fine and far. Some other lover sang
to her his serenade. The voice in its golden sonority rose and crept
toward her with persuading sweetness, winding through all the alleys and
hovering over the plots of greenery with a tranquil strength, as if such
song were but the natural spirit of the night, or as if the soul of the
broad calm and silence itself had taken voice.

"Thy beauty, like a star
Whose life is light,
Shines on me from afar.
And on the night.

"Each midnight blossom bends
With sweetest weight,
And to thy casement sends
Its fragrant freight.

"Each, air that faintly curls
About thy nest
Its daring pinion furls
Within thy breast.

"The night is spread for thee,
The heavens are wide,
And the dark earth's mystery
Is magnified.

"For thee the garden waits,
The hours delay,
The fountains toss their jets
Of shimmering spray.

"Then leave thy dim delight
In dreams above,
Come forth, and crown the night
With her I love!"

She listened, but did not lift her head or