Lilith

me, as to him that made me, all in all!
Suddenly I found myself in a solid blackness, upon which the ghost of light that dwells in the caverns of the
eyes could not cast one fancied glimmer. But my heart, which feared nothing and hoped infinitely, was full of
peace. I lay imagining what the light would be when it came, and what new creation it would bring with
it−−when, suddenly, without conscious volition, I sat up and stared about me.
The moon was looking in at the lowest, horizontal, crypt−like windows of the death−chamber, her long light
slanting, I thought, across the fallen, but still ripening sheaves of the harvest of the great husbandman.−−But
no; that harvest was gone! Gathered in, or swept away by chaotic storm, not a sacred sheaf was there! My
dead were gone! I was alone!−−In desolation dread lay depths yet deeper than I had hitherto known!−−Had
there never been any ripening dead? Had I but dreamed them and their loveliness? Why then these walls?
why the empty couches? No; they were all up! they were all abroad in the new eternal day, and had forgotten
me! They had left me behind, and alone! Tenfold more terrible was the tomb its inhabitants away! The quiet
ones had made me quiet with their presence−−had pervaded my mind with their blissful peace; now I had no
friend, and my lovers were far from me! A moment I sat and stared horror−stricken. I had been alone with the
moon on a mountain top in the sky; now I was alone with her in a huge cenotaph: she too was staring about,
seeking her dead with ghastly gaze! I sprang to my feet, and staggered from the fearful place.
The cottage was empty. I ran out into the night.
Lilith
No moon was there! Even as I left the chamber, a cloudy rampart had risen and covered her. But a broad
shimmer came from far over the heath, mingled with a ghostly murmuring music, as if the moon were raining
a light that plashed as it fell. I ran stumbling across the moor, and found a lovely lake, margined with reeds
and rushes: the moon behind the cloud was gazing upon the monsters' den, full of clearest, brightest water,
and very still.−−But the musical murmur went on, filling the quiet air, and drawing me after it.
I walked round the border of the little mere, and climbed the range of hills. What a sight rose to my eyes! The
whole expanse where, with hot, aching feet, I had crossed and recrossed the deep−scored channels and
ravines of the dry river−bed, was alive with streams, with torrents, with still pools−−"a river deep and wide"!
How the moon flashed on the water! how the water answered the moon with flashes of its own−−white
flashes breaking everywhere from its rock−encountered flow! And a great jubilant song arose from its bosom,
the song of new−born liberty. I stood a moment gazing, and my heart also began to exult: my life was not all
a failure! I had helped to set this river free!−−My dead were not lost! I had but to go after and find them! I
would follow and follow until I came whither they had gone! Our meeting might be thousands of years away,
but at last−−AT LAST I should hold them! Wherefore else did the floods clap their hands?
I hurried down the hill: my pilgrimage was begun! In what direction to turn my steps I knew not, but I must
go and go till I found my living dead! A torrent ran swift and wide at the foot of the range: I rushed in, it laid
no hold upon me; I waded through it. The next I sprang across; the third I swam; the next I waded again.
I stopped to gaze on the wondrous loveliness of the ceaseless flash and flow, and to hearken to the
multitudinous broken music. Every now and then some incipient air would seem about to draw itself clear of
the dulcet confusion, only to merge again in the consorted roar. At moments the world of waters would
invade as if to overwhelm me−−not with the force of its seaward rush, or the shouting of its liberated throng,
but with the greatness of the silence wandering into sound.
As I stood lost in delight, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I turned, and saw a man in the prime of strength,
beautiful as if fresh from the heart of the glad creator, young like him who cannot grow old. I looked: it was
Adam. He stood large and grand, clothed in a white robe, with the moon in his hair.
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