arch, and I painted it too as fair as I could, and carved it all about
with many flowers and histories, and in them I carved the faces of those
I had known on earth (for I was not as one on earth now, but seemed quite
away out of the world). And as I carved, sometimes the monks and other
people too would come and gaze, and watch how the flowers grew; and
sometimes too as they gazed, they would weep for pity, knowing how all
had been. So my life passed, and I lived in that Abbey for twenty years
after he died, till one morning, quite early, when they came into the
church for matins, they found me lying dead, with my chisel in my hand,
underneath the last lily of the tomb.




LINDENBORG POOL. {21}


I read once in lazy humour Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_ on a cold May
night when the north wind was blowing; in lazy humour, but when I came to
the tale that is here amplified there was something in it that fixed my
attention and made me think of it; and whether I would or no, my thoughts
ran in this way, as here follows.

So I felt obliged to write, and wrote accordingly, and by the time I had
done the grey light filled all my room; so I put out my candles, and went
to bed, not without fear and trembling, for the morning twilight is so
strange and lonely. This is what I wrote.

* * * * *