And still the unwearied wind blew, and
still the Psyche danced on, as unwearied as the wind.
The sunset was rather an assumption than a decease, a reception of
him out of their sight into an eternity of gold and crimson; and
when he was gone, and the gorgeous bliss had withered into a dove
hued grief, then the cool, soft twilight, thoughtful of the past
and its love, crept out of the western caves over the breast of the
water, and filled the dome and made of itself a great lens royal,
through which the stars and their motions were visible; and the
ghost of Aurora with both hands lifted her shroud above her head
and made a dawn for the moon on the verge of the watery horizon--
a dawn as of the past, the hour of inverted hope.
Not a word all day had been uttered between Malcolm and his mistress:
when the moon appeared, with the waves sweeping up against her
face, he approached Florimel where she sat in the stern. Davy was
steering.
"Will your ladyship come forward and see how the Psyche goes?"
he said. "At the stern, you can see only the passive part of her
motion. It is quite another thing to see the will of her at work
in the bows."
At first she was going to refuse; but she changed her mind, or
her mind changed her: she was not much more of a living and acting
creature yet than the Psyche herself.
Pages:
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471