PROLOGUE

As one who wanders lone and wearily

Through desert tracts of Silence and of Night,

Pining for Lovers keen utterance and for light,

And chasing shadowy forms that mock and flee,

My soul was wandering through Eternity,

Seeking, within the depth and on the height

Of Being, one with whom it might unite

In life and love and immortality;

When lo! she stood before me, whom I'd sought,

With dying hope, through life's decaying years —

A form, a spirit, human yet divine.

Love gave her eyes the light of heav'n, and taught

Her lips the mystic music of the spheres.

Our beings met,— I felt her soul in mine;