h much significant insistence his beholding of the stars.

In the mingled moonlight and starlight of the loggia the figure of the
God of Love showed, he said, as clearly to his eyes as when he had
ascended the winding stair, albeit differently, for whereas in the
darkness the shape of Love had appeared to him luminous and fluttering,
as if it had been composed of many living and tinted fires, now in the
clear light of that open space it showed more like a bodily presence,
not human indeed, but wearing such humanity as it pleased the gods of
old time to assume when they condescended to commune with mortals. I
remember how he said, in the poem which I spoke of, that he could have
counted, had he the leisure, every feather in Love's wings. But the god,
or the vision which he took to be a god, gave him no such leisure, for
he came to a halt, and he had his arrow in his hand, and with that arrow
he pointed before him, and then the image of the God of Love melted into
the moonlight and vanished, and the glory of the stars was forgotten,
and Dante knew of nothing and cared for nothing but that his lady
Beatrice stood there awaiting him.

XVI

THE TALK OF LOVERS

When Dante came to the loggia it was very white in the moonlight, save
where the shadows of the marble pillars barred it with bands of black.
Amid the moonlight and the shade Beatrice walked, and waited for his
coming. When she heard his footsteps she came to a halt in her course,
and he, as he advanced, could see the shining of her eyes and the
quickened color of her cheeks; and it seemed to him in his rapture that
he did not move as mortals do, but that he went on winged feet toward
that vision of perfect loveliness. But when he came nigh to her, so near
that if he had stretched out his arm he could have touched her with his
hand, he stopped, and while he longed with all his soul to speak, the
use of words seemed suddenly to be forbidden to him, and his members
began to tremble again, as they had trembled before, when he came to an
end of reading the poem.

Madonna Beatrice saw the case he was in, and her heart pitied him, and,
perchance, she marvelled that Dante, who carried himself so valiantly
and could make songs of such surpassing sweetness, should be so
downcast and discomfited in the presence of her eighteen years. However
that may be, she addressed him, and the sound of her voice fell very
fresh and soft upon his ears, enriching the summer splend