the bosom of a young girl
sleeping: to float earthwards on a falling star, to slumber on a lotus
leaf.

A creature that amidst the still soft hush of woods and waters still
tells, to those who listen, of the world when the world was young.

The moth flew on, and poised on the fading crocus leaves, which spread
out their pale gold on the level of the grey floor.

It was weary, and its delicate wings drooped; it was storm-tossed,
wind-beaten, drenched with mist and frozen with the cold; it belonged to
the moon, to the dew, to the lilies, to the forget-me-nots, and to the
night; and it found that the hard grip of winter had seized it whilst
yet it had thought that the stars and the summer were with it. It lived
before its time,--and it was like the human soul, which being born in
the darkness of the world dares to dream of light, and, wandering in
vain search of a sun that will never rise, falls and perishes in
wretchedness.

It was beautiful exceedingly, with the brilliant tropical beauty of a
life that is short-lived. It rested a moment on the stem of the pale
flower, then with its radiant eyes fastened on the point of light which
the lamp thrust upward, it flew on high; and, spreading out its
transparent wings and floating to the flame, kissed it, quivered once,
and died.

There fell among the dust and cinder of the lamp a little heap of
shrunken, fire-scorched, blackened ashes.

The wind whirled them upward from their rest, and drove them forth into
the night to mingle with the storm-scourged grasses, the pale dead
violets, the withered snow-flowers, with all things frost-touched and
forgotten.

The spider sat aloft, sucking the juices from the fettered flies,
teaching its spawn to prey and feed; content in squalor and in
plenitude; in sensual sloth, and in the increase of its body and its
hoard.

He watched them both: the success of the spider, the death of the moth;
trite as a fable; ever repeated as the tides of the sea; the two symbols
of humanity; of the life which fattens on greed and gain, and the life
which perishes of divine desire.

* * *

There were no rare birds, no birds of moor and mountain, in that
cultivated and populous district; but to her all the little home-bred
things of pasture and orchard were full of poetry and of character.

The robins, with that pretty air of boldness with which they veil their
real shyness and timidity; the strong and saucy sparrows, powerfu