Lightly as bubbles the cherubim blow,
Saw I a-floating?
No, it was pretty girls gowned like a flower
Blown in a ring round their own apple-bower
I saw a-floating.
Or was it my dream, my dream only--who knows?--
As frail as a snowflake, as flushed as a rose,
I saw a-floating?
A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?

Martin sang, and the milkmaids danced, and Gillian in her prison
only heard the dropping of her tears, and only saw the rainbow
prisms on her lashes. But presently she laid her cheek against her
hand, and missed a touch she knew; and on that revealed her lovely
face so full of woe, that Martin needs must comfort her or weep
himself. And the dancers took no heed when he made one step across
the gate and went under the trees to the Well-House.

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" sighed Gillian, "if you had only lived they
would never have stolen the ring from my finger while I sat
heartsick."

Above her head a whispering voice replied, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter,
mend your dear heart! You shall wear this other ring when yours is
gone over the duckpond to Adversane."

Oh wonder! Out of the very heavens fell a silver ring into her
bosom. And if that night Gillian slept not, neither wept she.