Chapter XXXVIII

And, turning, peers into her prince's eyes;
Then, caught and clasped against her prince's heart,
Upon her breath her answer wordless dies,
And leaves her gratitude to sweeter art,--
To lips from which the bloom shall never part,
To looks wherein the summer never dies!

WHILE SHE SANG.

I.

She sang, and I heard the singing,
Far out of the wretched past,
Of meadow-larks in the meadow,
In a breathing of the blast.

Cold through the clouds of sunset
The thin red sunlight shone,
Staining the gloom of the woodland
Where I walked and dreamed alone;

And glinting with chilly splendor
The meadow under the hill,
Where the lingering larks were lurking
In the sere grass hid and still.

Out they burst with their singing,
Their singing so loud and gay;
They made in the heart of October
A sudden ghastly May,

That faded and ceased with their singing.
The thin red sunlight paled,
And through the boughs above me
The wind of evening wailed;--

Wailed, and the light of evening
Out of the heaven died;
And from the marsh by the river
The lonesome killdee cried.