In a mounting whirlwind of dilated flame,) Blew upward, straight, its drift of fiery chaff In the face of Heaven, ... which blenched, and ran up higher.’ ‘Poor Romney!’ ‘Sometimes when I dream,’ he said, ‘I hear the silence after; ’twas so still. For all those wild beasts, yelling, cursing round, Were suddenly silent, while you counted five! So silent, that you heard a young bird fall From the top-nest in the neighbouring rookery Through edging over-rashly toward the light. The old rooks had already fled too far, To hear the screech they fled with, though you saw Some flying on still, like scatterings of dead leaves In autumn-gusts, seen dark against the sky: All flying,—ousted, like the House of Leigh.’ ‘Dear Romney!’ ‘Evidently ’twould have been A fine sight for a poet, sweet, like you, To make the verse blaze after. I myself, Even I, felt something in the grand old trees, Which stood that moment like brute Druid gods Amazed upon the rim of ruin, where, As into a blackened socket, the great fire Had dropped,—still throwing up splinters now and then, To show them grey with all their centuries, Left there to witness that on such a day The house went out.’ ‘Ah!’ ‘While you counted five I seemed to feel a little like a Leigh,— But then it passed, Aurora. A child cried; And I had enough to think of what to do With all those houseless wretches in the dark, And ponder where they’d dance the next time, they Who had burnt the viol.’ ‘Did you think of that? Who burns his viol will not dance, I know, To cymbals, Romney.’ ‘O my sweet sad voice,’ He cried,—‘O voice that speaks and overcomes! The sun is silent, but Aurora speaks.’ ‘Alas,’ I said; ‘I speak I know not what: I’m back in childhood, thinking as a child, A foolish fancy—will it make you smile? I shall not from the window of my room Catch sight of those old chimneys any more.’ ‘No more,’ he answered. ‘If you pushed one day Through all the green hills to our fathers’ house, You’d come upon a great charred circle where The patient earth was singed an acre round; With one stone-stair, symbolic of my life, Ascending, winding, leading up to nought! ’Tis worth a poet’s seeing. Will you go?’ I made no answer. Had I any right To weep with this man, that I dared to speak? A woman stood between his soul and mine, And waved us off from touching evermore With those unclean white hands of hers. Enough. We had burnt our viols and were silent. So, The silence lengthened till it pressed. I spoke, To breathe: ‘I think you were ill afterward.’