“Delilah and Auden Spoon-bill gazed for a brief moment. They saw the magnificent things. They saw death in the brilliancies, but nevertheless their spirits rose high. They saw also a wild flight of live things before the wave. Delilah beheld her family--Lilith and the rest--struggling and half-covered with water, and their home made of reeds was loosed from its foundations and borne down the river. “Presently the flood overtook themselves and the life of Delilah was merged in water. She was borne high on a dark swell, and at the turning was suddenly struck a stunning blow upon the gray of her breast by a square black wooden tablet. “Before death came to her out of the brilliancies she was conscious of several things. She saw before her eyes for an instant with startling plainness the words on the tablet, ‘Gone in the hey-day of youth to his last rest. But his virtues are with us still.’ “She even fancied for the first time that she knew what it meant. “‘The hey-day of youth,’ she murmured to herself, ‘is the day I go to eat lotus flowers with my best-beloved--and virtues are two eyes of amethyst that are with me still as I am drowning.’ “Auden Spoon-bill was drowning together with her.-- “That’s all of the story,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “Thank you,” said I. “It is lovely in its quaintness. What does it mean, Annabel Lee?” “Mean?” said my friend Annabel Lee. “I didn’t say it meant anything.” “But I suppose,” said I, “everything that’s true means something.” “Very likely,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “But this story isn’t true. I made it up.” Because it isn’t true, or for some other reason, the story still runs in my head. How like my friend Annabel Lee it is! XVI A MEASURE OF SORROW “But though you are equally as beautiful as Poe’s Annabel Lee,” I said to my friend Annabel Lee--“and half the time I think you are the same one--still when I read over the poem in my mind I find differences.” “You find differences,” said my friend Annabel Lee. I repeated: “‘It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee. And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.’ The first four lines,” said I, “do very well, for it doesn’t matter how long ago you lived--and who can tell? But--I fancy you live with other thoughts than that mentioned.” “I fancy I do,” said my friend Annabel Lee. I repeated: “‘I was a child, and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; And we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee-- A love that the wingèd seraphs in heaven Coveted her and me.’