Yet, until that time, I had never met her for I had been so oft and long abroad and so much given to my Studies and my Exercises when at home, that I had no further Knowledge of her than Rumour gave to me odd time and for the rest, I was well content for as I have given hint, my books held me, and likewise my Exercises for I was always an athlete, and never met the man so quick or so strong as I did be save in some fiction of a tale or in the mouth of a boaster. And, lo! my content was answered out of the trees that bounded the country road upon my right and it was so as that some one had said: And thou also! in glad understanding, that I laughed again a little in my throat as though I had only a half-believing that any true human did answer my laugh but rather some sweet Delusion or Spirit that was tuned to my mood.īut she spoke and called me by my name and when I had gone to the side of the road, that I should see her somewhat, and discover whether I knew her, I saw that she was surely that lady, who for her beauty was known through all of that sweet County of Kent as Lady Mirdath the Beautiful and a near neighbour to me for the Estates of her Guardian abounded upon mine. The last time that I paused, I was truly lost in a solemn joy of the Glory of the Coming Night and maybe I laughed a little in my throat, standing there alone in the midst of the Dusk upon the World. I was gone a long way from my house, walking lonely-wise, and stopping often that I view the piling upward of the Battlements of Evening, and to feel the dear and strange gathering of the Dusk come over all the world about me. It was the Joy of the Sunset that brought us to speech.

And I cannot touch her face And I cannot touch her hair, And I kneel to empty shadows- Just memories of her grace And her voice sings in the winds And in the sobs of dawn And among the flowers at night And from the brooks at sunrise And from the sea at sunset, And I answer with vain callings.

The night land by william hope hodgson