Chapter XXVI

A few days later, as we sat and talk’d,
He on us burst, and brought a sudden light
Illuminating her, and paling me,
Blanch’d, ash-like, in the flame of that hot flush
That warm’d her welcome. All my heart and breath
Seem’d sunk in silence like the buzzing bees
When autumn steals the sunlight from the flowers,
And frost seals down their sweets. I heard them talk
Like one who just has walk’d a glacier path
With boist’rous friends; then, stumbling, slips away,
Far suck’d through freezing fathoms down to death,
Yet hears the cruel laughter crackling still.