Lilith

the more disgusted I became with myself. Why should I have feared such dead? To share their holy rest was
an honour of which I had proved myself unworthy! What harm could that sleeping king, that lady with the
wound in her palm, have done me? I fell a longing after the sweet and stately stillness of their two
countenances, and wept. Weeping I threw myself on a couch, and suddenly fell asleep.
As suddenly I woke, feeling as if some one had called me. The house was still as an empty church. A
blackbird was singing on the lawn. I said to myself, "I will go and tell them I am ashamed, and will do
whatever they would have me do!" I rose, and went straight up the stairs to the garret.
The wooden chamber was just as when first I saw it, the mirror dimly reflecting everything before it. It was
nearly noon, and the sun would be a little higher than when first I came: I must raise the hood a little, and
adjust the mirrors accordingly! If I had but been in time to see Mr. Raven do it!
I pulled the chains, and let the light fall on the first mirror. I turned then to the other: there were the shapes of
the former vision−−distinguishable indeed, but tremulous like a landscape in a pool ruffled by "a small
pipling wind!" I touched the glass; it was impermeable.
Suspecting polarisation as the thing required, I shifted and shifted the mirrors, changing their relation, until at
last, in a great degree, so far as I was concerned, by chance, things came right between them, and I saw the
mountains blue and steady and clear. I stepped forward, and my feet were among the heather.
All I knew of the way to the cottage was that we had gone through a pine−forest. I passed through many
thickets and several small fir−woods, continually fancying afresh that I recognised something of the country;
but I had come upon no forest, and now the sun was near the horizon, and the air had begun to grow chill
with the coming winter, when, to my delight, I saw a little black object coming toward me: it was indeed the
raven!
I hastened to meet him.
"I beg your pardon, sir, for my rudeness last night," I said. "Will you take me with you now? I heartily
confess I do not deserve it."
"Ah!" he returned, and looked up. Then, after a brief pause, "My wife does not expect you to−night," he said.
"She regrets that we at all encouraged your staying last week."
"Take me to her that I may tell her how sorry I am," I begged humbly.
"It is of no use," he answered. "Your night was not come then, or you would not have left us. It is not come
now, and I cannot show you the way. The dead were rejoicing under their daisies−−they all lie among the
roots of the flowers of heaven−−at the thought of your delight when the winter should be past, and the
morning with its birds come: ere you left them, they shivered in their beds. When the spring of the universe
arrives,−−but that cannot be for ages yet! how many, I do not know−−and do not care to know."
"Tell me one thing, I beg of you, Mr. Raven: is my father with you? Have you seen him since he left the
world?"
"Yes; he is with us, fast asleep. That was he you saw with his arm on the coverlet, his hand half closed."
"Why did you not tell me? That I should have been so near him, and not know!"
"And turn your back on him!" corrected the raven.
Lilith
Lilith 28