Ere long, they bore me to my grave. Never tired child lay down in his
white bed, and heard the sound of his playthings being laid aside for
the night, with a more luxurious satisfaction of repose than I knew,
when I felt the coffin settle on the firm earth, and heard the sound of
the falling mould upon its lid. It has not the same hollow rattle within
the coffin, that it sends up to the edge of the grave. They buried me
in no graveyard. They loved me too much for that, I thank them; but they
laid me in the grounds of their own castle, amid many trees; where, as
it was spring-time, were growing primroses, and blue-bells, and all the
families of the woods
Now that I lay in her bosom, the whole earth, and each of her many
births, was as a body to me, at my will. I seemed to feel the great
heart of the mother beating into mine, and feeding me with her own life,
her own essential being and nature. I heard the footsteps of my friends
above, and they sent a thrill through my heart. I knew that the helpers
had gone, and that the knight and the lady remained, and spoke low,
gentle, tearful words of him who lay beneath the yet wounded sod. I rose
into a single large primrose that grew by the edge of the grave,
and from the window of its humble, trusting face, looked full in the
countenance of the lady. I felt that I could manifest myself in the
primrose; that it said a part of what I wanted to say; just as in the
old time, I had used to betake myself to a song for the same end. The
flower caught her eye. She stooped and plucked it, saying, "Oh, you
beautiful creature!" and, lightly kissing it, put it in her bosom. It
was the first kiss she had ever given me. But the flower soon began to
wither, and I forsook it.
It was evening. The sun was below the horizon; but his rosy beams yet
illuminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the world. I
arose, I reached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon it, floated with
it in sight of the sinking sun. He sank, and the cloud grew gray; but
the grayness touched not my heart. It carried its rose-hue within;
for now I could love without needing to be loved again. The moon came
gliding up with all the past in her wan face. She changed my couch into
a ghostly pallor, and threw all the earth below as to the bottom of a
pale sea of dreams. But she could not make me sad. I knew now, that it
is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul
of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other,
and not the being loved by each other, that originates and perfects and
assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth,
power over any soul beloved, even if that soul know him not, bringing
him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good;
for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the
power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet
with its return. All true love will, one day, behold its own image in
the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. This is possible in the
realms of lofty Death. "Ah! my friends," thought I, "how I will tend
you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my love."