’Two children, a boy and girl, were playing between wood and meadow. They pledged their faith, each to the other, with rosy lips on lips, He to protect, she to trust—always together for ever and ever. A storm rose: the dragon of the thunder roared and hissed, Probing the earth with its keen tongue. How she cowered, the pretty, fearful thing! Yet adored her little love to see him dare That tree-cleaving monster with his sword of lath. And in the end, because she trusted in her love, her love prevailed, And drove the roaring terror from the woods. She never felt such faith, nor he such pride of virtue in his strength. Then shone out the rainbow, And he bethought him of the jewelled cup hid at its foot. "Stay here," quoth he, new boldened by his triumph, "And I’ll fetch it ye." But she cried to him: "Nay, leveling, take me too! We were to be aye together: O leave me not behind!" But he was already on his way. And still, as he pursued, the rainbow fled before, And the voice of his playmate, faint and fainter, followed in his wake: "O leave me not behind!" Then grew he wild and desperate, clutching at that mirage, the unattainable, The lustrous cup that was to bring him happiness in its possession. And the voice blew ghostly in his wake, mingling with rain and the whirl of dead leaves: "Leave me not behind!" But now the fire of unfulfilment seared his brain, And often he staggered in the slough, Or fell and cut himself on rocks. And so, pushing on half-blindly, Knew not at last from the dead rainbow the _ignis fatuus_, The false witch-light that danced upon his path, Leading him to destruction. Until, lo! With a flash and laugh it was not, And he awoke to a mid-horror of darkness— Night in the infernal swamps— Blind, crawling, desolate; and for ever in his heart The weeping shadow of a voice, "O leave me not behind!" Then at that, like one amazed, he turned, And cried in agony: "Innocenza, my lost Innocence, Where art thou? O, little playmate, follow to my call!" And there answered him only from the gates of the sunset a heart-broken sigh.’ He ended to a deep silence, and, while all stood stricken between tears and expectancy, moved to within a pace of the Duke. ’O prince!’ he cried, ’haunted of that Innocence! Turn back, turn back, and find in thy lost playmate’s face the ghost that now eludes thee!’