At the word she sprang upright.
To her ice-lips she drew his burning ear,
And whispered--he shivered--she whispered light.
She withdrew; she gazed with an asking fear;
He stood with a face ghost-white.

"I wait--ah, would I might wait!" she said;
"But the moon sinks in the tide;
Thou seest it not; I see it fade,
Like one that may not bide.
Alas! I go out in the moonless shade;
Ah, kind! let me stay and hide."

He shivered, he shook, he felt like clay;
And the fear went through his blood;
His face was an awful ashy grey,
And his veins were channels of mud.
The lady stood in a white dismay,
Like a half-blown frozen bud.

"Ah, speak! am I so frightful then?
I live; though they call it death;
I am only cold--say _dear_ again"--
But scarce could he heave a breath;
The air felt dank, like a frozen fen,
And he a half-conscious wraith.

"Ah, save me!" once more, with a hopeless cry,
That entered his heart, and lay;
But sunshine and warmth and rosiness vie