Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/147

135 (Façon de parler!) I don't think I will ever enter a drawing-room again. The sickening foolery we all talked! And yet—'[a pause expressed on continuing by half a row of dots.] '… And yet, how, if I do not go out into the world and talk with people therein, am I ever likely to meet the woman I am to love, nay, love already in my heart?—"O dear woman with sweet clear eyes, standing waiting and looking for me while in my light boat on that, the night of my life, I pass from the shadowiness into the silver-purled moon-track; pass on and on to the grass mingled with the gently-moving wave in which the roses dip. I am there now, and know not of you: see, breathe, only this terrestrial beauty. I step from the boat into the soft grass: the rope is tied, and I turn and come up through the rose-perfumed garden, up through the brushing dew-laden bushes; and look into the blue unspeakable depth, and the stars, and one crystal-rayed star beside the peerless moon, and then look and see you, O dear woman mine, with sweet, clear eyes, standing waiting and looking for me, and feeling that I am come at last. And at first it seems that we are there in a dream, parts, unknown parts of it; and I come closer to you, closer and closer, till more than dream's passion grows in me, and at last my eyes are in yours and yours in mine, and my lips can feel your playing breath. Oh the kiss! the kiss! the kiss! the draining of life and love! "Mine, mine, mine, mine at last! Met in the time of eternity: met, and with a meeting that can never be undone. O thou loved, thou loved, thou art come to me at last! thou loved, thou loved, take me body and soul to thyself. As river mingles with sea, as moisture with cloud: so let mine mingle with thine; for I am thine, and thou art mine, and we are Love's!"

'Rosy was out.' [A pause, expressed as before.]

'… I do wonder if I ever really shall meet a "dear woman"? It doesn't seem like it somehow. At any rate, I shan't meet her in that way. What brought up that sudden vision? I saw it as distinctly as I see that window-curtain there with the red blind behind it.—This is purposeless.

'Rosy was out, and, as I didn't feel Like waiting, I