Alas! I had not meant to be inconstant, but while I strove sullenly for success in uncongenial occupation, _she_ came to me--Aspiro--came like the truth and light, and taught me to myself. For a long time I doubted and resisted; though she tempted me, making real the dreams of my shy, worshipful childhood, teaching me the meanings of treasured stories which I had listened to from flower-sprite and river-god, leading and wooing me with lovelier lures than even Nature's; for tropical bird-song and falling water was harsh to her voice, and dew-dripped lilies dim to her brow. But I shut my dazzled eyes at first from these, and strove to see only the face whereon, with tender kisses, I had sealed my future--having narrow aims; till the vision faded despairingly, and even closed lids would not recall it, and my weak resistance seemed but to strengthen the sway that bore me willingly away. Over and over I told the rosary of Aspiro's charms. Hour by hour I wearied not of her perfections. With burning vows and rapturous words I pledged my life to her. Once when the wind was sweeping her gay garments, like hope-banners, against my limbs, and tangling her long, loose hair about me--once when I was blind with the jewel-dazzle from her breast, thrilled by the passion-pressure of her hand, she said, in saddest, sweetest tones: 'I am erratic, Paulo, and exacting--will you tire of me!' O Immortality! Did not that seem sacrilege! Like curlew's wings flapped the white sails of the ship on the blue waters. Aspiro's eyes absorbed my mind and memory. The past was voiceless--the future clarion-toned. So we loosed our hold of the real past, and drifted toward an ideal future. We wandered through apocalyptic mazes, startling the hush of mystery with daring footsteps. We brake the bread of the cosmic sacrament in sight of the Inaccessible. In the metallic mirrors of Arctic lakes we watched the wind-whipped clouds. Mute we knelt in the ice-temples of Silence, and where the glaciers shatter the rainbows we renewed our promises. Wet sat at the universal banquet, and drank deep of Beauty. Cheek pressed to cheek, arms interlaced, we sighed in the consecrated throes of its reproduction, and in the imagery of Art we lisped Creation's lessons. From height to height and depth to depth. Lagging in low canoes along the black waters of silent swamps--life-left--seeing the far-off blue of sky and hope between the warning points of cypress spires. Across the stretch of yellow sands, seeking her riddle of the Sphinx, and asking from the Runic records of one dead faith, and the sand-buried temples of another, the aim of the True.