"That love is to be my redemption, Carry. In the upper region of the air there is eternal calm and sunshine, while the clouds brood and crash below. Such calm and light shall my love win for me. I have dwelt for years in the black, noisome vapors--I am rising now! Is it not Jean Paul who says--'Love may slumber in a young maiden's heart, but he always dreams!' I have had dreams--day visions, more transporting than any the night bestows. I have dreamed that my wayward will bent, in glad humility, to a stronger and wiser mind;--that my eye fell beneath the fondness of one that quailed at nothing; that I leaned my tired head upon a bosom, whose every throb was to me an earnest of his abiding truth; and drank in the music of a voice, whose sweetest accent was the low whisper that called me 'his own!' These are not chance vagaries; they have been the food of my heart for long and dreary months; angel-voices about my pillow--my companions in the still twilight hour--summoned by pleasure or pain, to sympathise and console. Then my breast is a temple, consecrated to an ideal, but none the less fervent in the devotion offered therein; the hoarded riches of a lifetime are heaped upon his shrine. I have imagined him high in the world's opinion; doing his part nobly in the strife of life;--and I, unawed by the laurel-crown--unheeding it--say, 'Love me--only love me!' I love to fancy, and feel him present, and sing to him the strains which gush from my soul at his coming. This is one." She left Carry's side. A lightly-played prelude floated through the darkening room, then a recitative, of which the words and music seemed alike born out of the impulse of the hour: Thy heart is like the billowy tide Of some impetuous river, That mighty in its power and pride, Sweeps on and on forever. The white foam is its battle crest, As to the charge it rushes And from its vast and panting breast, A stormy shout up gushes. "Through all--o'er all--my way I cleave-- Each barrier down-bearing-- Fame is the guerdon of the brave, And victory of the daring!" While mine is like the brooklet's flow, Through peaceful valley's gliding; O'er which the willow boughs bend low The tiny wavelet hiding. And as it steals on, calm and clear, A little song 'tis singing, That vibrates soft upon the ear, Like fairy vespers ringing. "Love me--love me!" it murmurs o'er, 'Midst light and shadows ranging, "Love me," It gurgles evermore, The burden never changing. Thine is the eagle's lofty flight, With ardent hope, aspiring E'en to the flaming source of light, Undoubling and untiring. Glory, with gorgeous sunbeam, throws An Iris mantle o'er thee-- A radiant present round thee glows-- Deathless renown before thee.