and toil; I will look around me at thy bidding; I will celebrate the full glory of thy splendour; trace out, untired, the beauteous consistency of thy wondrous work; willingly will I mark the marvellous course of thy mighty, glowing timepiece; observe the balance of gigantic powers, and the laws of the wondrous play of countless spaces and their periods.  But true to the Night remains my heart of hearts, and to creative Love, her daughter.  Canst thou show me a heart for ever faithful?  Hath thy sun fond eyes that know me?  Do thy stars clasp my proffered hand?  Do they return the tender pressure, the caressing word?  Hast thou clothed her with fair hues and pleasing outline?  Or was it she who gave thine ornament a higher, dearer meaning?  What pleasure, what enjoyment, can thy life afford, that shall overweigh the ecstasies of death?  Bears not everything that inspires us the colours of the Night?  Thee she cherishes with a mother’s care; to her thou owest all thy majesty.  Thou hadst melted in thyself, hadst been dissolved in endless space, had she not restrained and encircled thee, so that thou wert warm, and gavest life to the world.  Verily I was, before thou wert:  the mother sent me with my sisters to inhabit thy world, to hallow it with love, so that it might be gazed on as a memorial for ever, to plant it with unfading flowers.  As yet they have borne no fruit, these godlike thoughts; but few as yet are the traces of our revelation.  The day shall come when thy timepiece pointeth to the end of time, when thou shalt be even as one of us; and, filled with longing and ardent love, be blotted out and die.  Within my soul I feel the end of thy distracted power, heavenly freedom, hailed return.  In wild sorrow I recognise thy distance from our home, thy hostility towards the ancient glorious heaven.  In vain are thy tumult and thy rage.  Indestructible remains the cross—­a victorious banner of our race.

“I wander over,
   And every tear
To gem our pleasure
   Will then appear. 
A few more hours,
   And I find my rest
In maddening bliss,
   On the loved one’s breast. 
Life, never ending,
   Swells mighty in me;
I look from above down —
   Look back upon thee. 
By yonder hillock
   Expires thy beam;
And comes with a shadow,
   The cooling gleam. 
Oh, call me, thou loved one,
   With strength from above;
That I may slumber,
   And wake to love. 
I welcome death’s
   Reviving flood;
To balm and to ether
   It changes my blood. 
I live through each day,
   Filled with faith and desire;
And die when the Night comes
   In heaven-born fire.”

V.