Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/284

258 258 THE FIRST MORRIS " values " of poetry — altering its relations — twitching into a new, sharper perspective the lines of the country into which, through the lattice of letters, the mind of the reader had been accustomed to peer. Now, for a little, quite utterly, the atmosphere of earth ebbs away ; and across the drained empti- ness the colours leap upon the senses with the parched, uncanny emphasis of dream. It is the brittle atmosphere of fever, prismatic but awry : distance is abolished, details loom relentlessly, little noises, unnoticed before — sighs, rustlings, the tapping of a pulse, the involuntary whisperings of loosened hair — wax and swell until their beating fills the brain : — " let the clock tick, tick To my unhappy pulse that beats right through My eager body." A binding heat is on all things ; and the figures that walk in this airless region seem to move with strangled limbs, as though plucked and stilled by some invisible tension, using the awkward gestures of the overstrung : — But knowing now that they would have her speak, She threw her wet hair backward from her brow, Her hand close to her mouth touching her cheek. As though she had had there a shameful blow, And feeling it shameful to feel aught but shame All through her heart, yet felt her cheek burned so, She must a little touch it ; like one lame She walked away from Gauwaine, with her head Still lifted up ; and on her cheek of flame The tears dried quick ; she stopped «it l£|,st and said ;
 * 'Q knights ^nd lords ? . ,"