"'How shall I woo her? I will stand Beside her when she sings, And watch her fine and fairy hand Flit o'er the quivering strings! But shall I tell her I have heard, Though sweet her song may be, A voice where every whispered word _Was more than song to me_? "'How shall I woo her? I will gaze, In sad and silent trance, On those blue eyes whose liquid rays Look love in every glance. But shall I tell her eyes more bright, Though bright her own may beam, Will fling a deeper spell to-night _Upon me in my dream_?'" I hesitated. "Let me stop here, Major Favraud, I counsel you," I interpolated, earnestly; but he only rejoined: "No, no! proceed, I entreat you! it is very beautiful--very touching, too!" Speaking calmly, and slacking rein, so that the grating of the wheels among the stems of the scarlet _lychnis_, that grew in immense patches on our road, might not disturb his sense of hearing, which, by-the-way, was exquisitely nice and fastidious. "As you please, then;" and I continued the recitation. "'How shall I woo her? I will try The charms of olden time, And swear by earth, and sea, and sky, And rave in prose and rhyme-- And I will tell her, when I bent My knee in other years, I was not half so _eloquent_; I could not speak--_for tears_!'" I watched him narrowly; the spell was working now; the poet's hand was sweeping, with a gust of power, that harp of a thousand strings, the wondrous human heart! And I again pursued, in suppressed tones of heart-felt emotion, the pathetic strain that he had evoked with an idea of its frivolity alone: "'How shall I woo her? I will bow Before the holy shrine, And pray the prayer, and vow the vow, And press her lips to mine-- And I will tell her, when she starts From passion's thrilling kiss, That _memory_ to many hearts Is dearer far than bliss!'" It was reserved for the concluding verse to unnerve him completely; a verse which I rendered with all the pathos of which I was capable, with a view to its final effect, I confess: "'Away! away! the chords are mute, The bond is rent in twain; You _cannot_ wake the silent lute, Or clasp its links again. Love's toil, I know, is little cost; Love's perjury is light sin; But souls that lose what I have lost, What have they left to win?'" "What, indeed?" he exclaimed, impetuously--tears now streaming over his olive cheeks. He flung the reins to me with a quick, convulsive motion, and covered his face with his hands. Groans burst from his murmuring lips, and the great deeps of sorrow gave up their secrets. I was sorry to have so stirred him to the depths by any act or words of mine, and yet I enjoyed the certainty of his anguish.