]!--rapture of panic taking the shape (which
amongst tombs in churches I have seen) of woman bursting her sepulchral
bonds--of woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her
grave with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped adoring
hands--waiting, watching, trembling, praying for the trumpet's call to
rise from dust for ever! Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity
on the brink of almighty abysses!--vision that didst start back, that
didst reel away, like a shrivelling scroll from before the wrath of
fire racing on the wings of the wind! Epilepsy so brief of horror,
wherefore is it that thou canst not die? Passing so suddenly into
darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral
blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams? Fragment of music too
passionate, heard once, and heard no more, what aileth thee, that thy
deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of
sleep, and after forty years have lost no element of horror?
I
Lo, it is summer--almighty summer! The everlasting gates of life and
summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as
a savannah, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are
floating--she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-
decker. Both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness within the
domain of our common country, within that ancient watery park, within
the pathless chase of ocean, where England takes her pleasure as a
huntress through winter and summer, from the rising to the setting sun.
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