She heard the piping of an elfish voice, "Mother, why does the minister keep his hands over his heart?" and the white drawn face of Hester Prynne, with her scarlet elf-child, passed slowly across her vision. The wretched misery of deluded Lucius and his mysterious Lamia she saw, and watched with breathless interest the formation of that "Brotherhood of the Rose." There was radiant Armorel, from sea-blown, wave-washed Lyonesse, her perfect head poised in loving caress over the magic violin. Dark-eyed Corinne, head drooped gently as she improvised those Rome-famed world symphonies passed, almost ere Edna and St. Elmo had crossed the threshold of the church happy in the love now consecrated through her to God. Oh, the pictures, the forms, the love-words which crowded her mind! They thrilled her heart, crushed out all else save a crushing, over-powering sense of perfect, complete joy. A joy that sought to express itself in wondrous melodies and silences, filled with thoughts too deep and sacred for words. Overpowered with the magnificence of his reign, overwhelmed with the complete subjugation of all things unto him, do you wonder that she awoke and placing both hands into those of the lover at her side, whispered:--
Take all of me--I am thine own, heart, soul, Brain, body, all; all that I am or dream Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem With thy conditions, I'd fulfil the whole, Were to fulfil them to be loved by thee.
The light streams through the windows arched high, And o'er the stern, stone carvings breaks In warm rich gold and crimson waves, Then steals away in corners dark to die.
And all the grand cathedral silence falls Into the hearts of those that worship low, Like tender waves of hushed nothingness, Confined nor kept by human earthly walls.
Deep music in its thundering organ sounds, Grows diffuse through the echoing space, Till hearts grow still in sadness' mighty joy, Or leap aloft in swift ecstatic bounds.
Mayhap 'twas but a dream that came to me, Or but a vision of the soul's desire, To see the nation in one mighty whole, Do homage on its bended, worshipping knee.
Through time's heroic actions, the soul of man, Alone proves what that soul without earth's dross Could be, and this, through time's far-searching fire, Hath proved thine white beneath the deepest scan.