_Lady A_. Who would have thought it?--so cold and proud he seemed, so scornful of our sex.--And yet I knew something there lay beneath it all.--Even in that wild, gay mood, when the light of mirth filled and o'er-flowed those splendid eyes,--deeper still, I saw always the calm sorrow-beam shining within. That picture he showed me--how pretty it was!--The face haunts me with its look of beseeching loveliness.--Was there anything so sorrowful about it though?--Nay, the look was a smile, and yet a strange mourn-fulness clings to my thought of it now. Well, if the painter hath not dissembled in it--the _painter_?--no. The spirit of those eyes was of no painter's making. From the _Eidos_ of the Heavenly Mind sprung that. I shall see her to-morrow.--Nay, I must meet her in the outskirts of the camp,--so went my promise,--if Maitland be not here ere then. [_Exit_. THOUGHTS. SCENE. _The Hill. The Student's Night-watch_. How beautiful the night, through all these hours Of nothingness, with ceaseless music wakes Among the hills, trying the melodies Of myriad chords on the lone, darkened air, With lavish power, self-gladdened, caring nought That there is none to hear. How beautiful! That men should live upon a world like this, Uncovered all, left open every night To the broad universe, with vision free To roam the long bright galleries of creation, Yet, to their strange destiny ne'er wake. Yon mighty hunter in his silver vest, That o'er those azure fields walks nightly now, In his bright girdle wears the self-same gems That on the watchers of old Babylon Shone once, and to the soldier on her walls Marked the swift hour, as they do now to me. Prose is the dream, and poetry the truth. That which we call reality, is but Reality's worn surface, that one thought Into the bright and boundless all might pierce, There's not a fragment of this weary real That hath not in its lines a story hid Stranger than aught wild chivalry could tell. There's not a scene of this dim, daily life, But, in the splendor of one truthful thought As from creation's palette freshly wet, Might make young romance's loveliest picture dim, And e'en the wonder-land of ancient song,---- Old Fable's fairest dream, a nursery rhyme. How calm the night moves on, and yet In the dark morrow, that behind those hills Lies sleeping now, who knows what waits?--'Tis well. He that made this life, I'll trust with another. To be,--there was the risk. We might have waked Amid a wrathful scene, but this,--with all Its lovely ordinances of calm days, The golden morns, the rosy evenings, Its sweet sabbath hours and holy homes,---- If the same hidden hand from whence these sprung, That dark gate opens, what need we fear there?---- Here's wrath, but none that hath not its sure pathway Upward leading,--there are tears, but 'tis