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Urging in high spring-tide its masterful way through the mountains,
Forcing and flooding the silvery stream, as it runs from the inland;
That great water withdrawn, receding here and passive,
Felt she in myriad springs, her sources, far in the mountains,
Stirring, collecting, rising, upheaving, forth-out-flowing,
Taking and joining, right welcome, that delicate rill in the valley,
Filling it, making it strong, and still descending, seeking,
With a blind forefeeling descending, evermore seeking,
With a delicious forefeeling, the great still sea before it;
There deep into it, far, to carry, and lose in its bosom,
Waters that still from their sources exhaustless are fain to be added.
As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground before her,
Yielding backward she sank to her seat, and of what she was doing
Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague emotion,
Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the curl on his forehead:
And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time, round her
Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her, close to his bosom.
As they went home by the moon, Forgive me, Philip, she whispered;
I have so many things to think of, all of a sudden;
I who had never once thought a thing,—in my ignorant Highlands.
VIII.
Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur hymenæus,
Hymen, O hymenæe! Hymen, ades, O hymenæe!
BUT a revulsion again came over the spirit of Elspie,
When she thought of his wealth, his birth and education :
Wealth indeed but small, though to her a difference truly;
Father nor mother had Philip, a thousand pounds his portion,
Somewhat impaired in a world where nothing is had for nothing;
Fortune indeed but small, and prospects plain and simple.
But the many things that he knew, and the ease of a practised
Intellect's motion, and all those indefinable graces
(Were they not hers, too, Philip?) to speech and manner, and movement,
Lent by the knowledge of self, and wisely instructed feeling,—
When she thought of all these, and these contemplated daily,
Daily appreciating more, and more exactly appraising,—
With these thoughts, and the terror withal of a thing she could not
