Once I paused; between myself and the sun a hawk was grappling with a smaller bird, whose feathers floated down like snow-flakes. My tongue formed the word ‘metempsychosis’ again, and Gabriel understood once more. A taint of sorrow came at the thought of our brief parting. And then I was possessed of an unutterable joy. * * * * * At mid-day he lay sleeping beside me on the moor. With my own hands I made his bed: with my own hands smoothed the sheet. Evening had fallen, when, alone and pensive, I heard the sweet bells of Saint Anne of Esperance, and saw the dim valleys of Braithwage and Camsdell with their serpentine streams. ROXANA RUNS LUNATICK Amongst the May poetry in the ninety-first volume of the _British Review_ is the following composition by Lady Penwhile, whose Roxana had shaken the town for a whole season. ‘Placed in the hand of the Satyr who guards the Puzzle-Pegs at N----, with a tress of hair for Hyperion.’ _If so be that Hyperion visit thy stately lawn on the anniversary of our parting, O Satyr, wilt thou tell him that R---- hath often sigh’d for him there, and that, tho’ she has worn green Hellebore, such as he gave her a year agone--when he vow’d an early return--her hopes grow ever fainter and fainter. Say to him that she is bound in golden chains, but that her heart sings when she thinks of him--(ay, her heart is ever singing)--whisper that she loves him more as every moment passes. And when thou hast done all this, bid Pan trill from his pipes, whilst thou chantest this ditty._ Five halting verses follow, wherein ’tis told that the lovers had parted, that Roxana had wedded an old man, that she felt incapable of expressing in words the vehemency of her passion. But dear, pleasing ghosts haunted her chambers day and night. My lord’s cast-off doxy sent the journal, with a venomous letter bidding him rub his forehead, for fear of the cuckoo. So he pondered in his book-room, his half-blinded eyes fixed upon the logs; and, after many struggles with his better nature, he devised a plot worthy of Satan himself. For Roxana was a prize worth keeping. She was pale, exquisitely pale. One forgot her eyes, but remembered that somewhere in her face was seen the sudden starting of a timid woman’s soul.... Hast ever watched the heart of a palm-catkin when a wanton hand has fired it? Lurking under the outer blackness are red and yellow intermixed. Such was the colour of her hair that fell from nape to heel. Hands that alone might have quenched lawless desires: of a subtle pink, like the ivory that comes from Africk.