Chapter CXXX: Book XII: The Treadmill

_They sat in the little cabin, where she had been reading some lines from the poem again--

“O easy access to the hearer’s grace
When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!”

“Ah, yes!” he said. “But our lot was cast in a different time.”

She put her hand upon his. “Even so,” she said; and then turned the page, and read once more--

“What though the music of thy rustic flute
Kept not for long its happy, country tone;
Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note
Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,
Which task’d thy pipe too sore, and tired thy
throat--
It failed, and thou wast mute!
Yet hadst thou always visions of our light!_”