the stars.

Beauty's songs were very simple. She got little practice, for her poet
only cared to have her sing over and over again the same sweet songs;
and perhaps if you had heard her sing 'Ask nothing more of me, sweet,'
or 'Darby and Joan,' you would have understood his indifference to
variety.

At last the little feast is quite, quite finished. Beauty has gone home;
her lover still carries her face in his heart as she waved and waved and
waved to him from the rattling lighted tramcar; long he sits and sits
thinking of her, gazing up at those lonely ancient stars; the air is
still bright with her presence, sweet with her thoughts, warm with her
kisses, and as he turns to the shut piano, he can still see her white
hands on the keys and her girlish face raised in an ecstasy--Beata
Beatrix--above the music.

'O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring--
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing!'

And then ... he would throw himself upon his bed, and burst into tears.

* * * * *

'And they are gone: aye, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.'