Haunting the grounds one night, as his use was
Who loved the dark as bats and owlets do,
Wyndham got sound of voices in the air
That did such strange and goblin changes ring
As left him doubtful whence the murmurs came,
Now here, now there, as they were winged things--
Such trick plays Echo upon hapless wight
Chance-caught in lonely places where she dwells,
Anon a laugh rang out, melodious,
Like the merle's note when its ecstatic heart
Is packed with summer-time; then all was still--
So still the soul of silence seemed to grieve
The loss of that sweet laughter. In his tracks
The man stopped short, and listened. As he leaned
And craned his neck, and peered into the gloom,
And would the fabulous hundred eyes were his
That Argus in the Grecian legend had,
He saw two figures moving through a drift
Of moonlight that lay stretched across the lawn:
A man's tall shape, a slim shape close at side,
Her palm in tender fashion pressed to his,
The woven snood about her shoulders fallen,
And from the sombre midnight of her hair
An ardent face out-looking like a star--
As in a vision saw he this, for straight
They vanished. Where those silvery shadows were
Was nothing. Had he dreamed it? Had he gone
Mad with much thinking on her, and so made
Ghosts of his own sick fancies? Like a man
Carved out of alabaster and set up