Page:Singular adventures of a knight.pdf/17

 wood and beneath the shadows of the trees, an innumerable host of glow worms lighted their inocuous fires, lustrous as the gems of Golconda, and Sir Gawen, desirous yet longer to enjoy the scene, went forward with light footsteps on the lawn; all was calm, and except the breeze of night, that sighed soft and sweetly through the world of leaves, a perfect silence prevailed. Not many minutes, however, had elapsed before the same enchanting music, to which he had listened with so much rapture in the vale, again arrested his ear, and presently he discovered on the border of the lawn, just rising above the wood, and floating on the bosom of the air, a being of the most delicate form; from his shoulders streamed a tunic of the tenderest blue, his wings and feet were clothed in downy silver, and in his grasp he had a wand, which as mountain snow. He rose swiftly in the air, his brilliance became excessive from the lunar rays, his song echoed through the vault of night, but having quickly diminished to the size and appearance of the evening star, it died away, and the next moment he was lost in æther. Sir Gawen still fixed his eye on that part of the heavens, where the vision had disappeared, and shortly had the pleasure of again seeing the star-like radience, which in an instant unfolded itself into the full and fine dimensions of the beauteous being, who having collected dew from the cold vales of Saturn, now descended rapidly