"In part, I have," said I; "for yesterday, at the entrance of this
forest, I found in a cottage the volume wherein it is recorded." "Then
take heed," he rejoined; "for, see my armour--I put it off; and as it
befell to him, so has it befallen to me. I that was proud am humble now.
Yet is she terribly beautiful--beware. Never," he added, raising his
head, "shall this armour be furbished, but by the blows of knightly
encounter, until the last speck has disappeared from every spot where
the battle-axe and sword of evil-doers, or noble foes, might fall; when
I shall again lift my head, and say to my squire, 'Do thy duty once
more, and make this armour shine.'"
Before I could inquire further, he had struck spurs into his horse and
galloped away, shrouded from my voice in the noise of his armour. For I
called after him, anxious to know more about this fearful enchantress;
but in vain--he heard me not. "Yet," I said to myself, "I have now
been often warned; surely I shall be well on my guard; and I am fully
resolved I shall not be ensnared by any beauty, however beautiful.
Doubtless, some one man may escape, and I shall be he." So I went on
into the wood, still hoping to find, in some one of its mysterious
recesses, my lost lady of the marble. The sunny afternoon died into
the loveliest twilight. Great bats began to flit about with their own
noiseless flight, seemingly purposeless, because its objects are unseen.
The monotonous music of the owl issued from all unexpected quarters in
the half-darkness around me. The glow-worm was alight here and there,
burning out into the great universe. The night-hawk heightened all the
harmony and stillness with his oft-recurring, discordant jar.
Numberless unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk; but all were of
twilight-kind, oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of
dreamy undefined love and longing. The odours of night arose, and bathed
me in that luxurious mournfulness peculiar to them, as if the plants
whence they floated had been watered with bygone tears. Earth drew me
towards her bosom; I felt as if I could fall down and kiss her. I forgot
I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be walking in a perfect night of
our own old nursing earth.
Great stems rose about me, uplifting a thick
multitudinous roof above me of branches, and twigs, and leaves--the bird
and insect world uplifted over mine, with its own landscapes, its own
thickets, and paths, and glades, and dwellings; its own bird-ways and
insect-delights. Great boughs crossed my path; great roots based the
tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong
to uphold. It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and
pleasures. And when, in the midst of this ecstacy, I remembered that
under some close canopy of leaves, by some giant stem, or in some mossy
cave, or beside some leafy well, sat the lady of the marble, whom my
songs had called forth into the outer world, waiting (might it not
be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a twilight which would veil her
confusion, the whole night became one dream-realm of joy, the central
form of which was everywhere present, although unbeheld. Then,
remembering how my songs seemed to have called her from the marble,
piercing through the pearly shroud of alabaster--"Why," thought I,
"should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon night that
inwraps her." My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemed
involuntarily.