“Most beautiful earth!” he cried aloud, “only as you recede from me do I realize how necessary it is for me to possess you. How is it that when I possess you I know you not as I know you now? But oh! if you are so wonderful from these great hills, what must you be from the greater hills of the air?” And he looked up, and saw the sun descending in the west. “Sweet earth,” he sighed, “you would hold me when I should be gone, and never remind me that the moment to depart is due.” And he stretched out his arms to her, sealed up his lips, and went into the Ring. Once more he knelt between the giant beeches, and sank all thoughts in pious contemplation; till suddenly those still waters were convulsed as though with stormy currents, and a wild song beat through his breast, so that he could not believe it was the bird singing from a short distance: it was as though the storm of music broke from his singing heart--yes, from his own heart singing for some unexpressed fulfillment. He was barely conscious of going through the trees, with eyes tight shut against the outer world, but soon he was kneeling at the brink of the Pond, while a surge of joy and pain in the song broke on his spirit like waves upon a shore, or love upon a man and a woman--washed back, towered up, and broke on him again. At last on one full glorious phrase it ceased. And at that instant, deep in the Pond, he saw the full orb of the moon, and dipped his head. Oh, when he lifted it, startled and illuminated, he saw on the further side of the Pond a woman standing. The moonlight bathed her form from head to foot, her hair was thrown behind her, and she stood facing him, so that in the cold clear light he could see her fully revealed: her strong tender face, her strong soft body, her strong slim legs, her strong and lovely arms. As white as mayblossom she was, and beauty went forth from her like fragrance from the shaken bough. So he knelt on his side and she stood on hers, both motionless, but gazing into each other’s eyes, and his heart broke (even as it had broken at the bird’s song) with a passion to take her in his arms, for it seemed to him that this alone would mend its breaking. Or if he might not do this, at least to send his need of her in a great cry across the Pond. And as his passion grew she slowly lifted her arms and opened them to him as though to bid him enter; and her lips parted, and she cried out, as though she were uttering the cry of his own soul: “Beloved!” All the joy and the pain, unfulfilled, of the bird’s song were gathered in that word.