Presence that gave the cup. At least they are lost to my sight. I see
them no more.

Why do I watch those Gates, in truth or in dream, before my time? Oh!
You can guess. That perchance I may behold those for whom my heart burns
with a quenchless, eating fire. And once I beheld--not the mother but
the child, my child, changed indeed, mysterious, wonderful, gleaming
like a star, with eyes so deep that in their depths my humanity seemed
to swoon.

She came forward; she knew me; she smiled and laid her finger on her
lips. She shook her hair about her and in it vanished as in a cloud. Yet
as she vanished a voice spoke in my heart, her voice, and the words it
said were--

"Wait, our Beloved! Wait!"

Mark well. "Our Beloved," not "My Beloved." So there are others by whom
I am beloved, or at least one other, and I know well who that one must
be.

*****

After this dream, perhaps I had better call it a dream, I was ill for a
long while, for the joy and the glory of it overpowered me and brought
me near to the death I had always sought. But I recovered, for my hour
is not yet. Moreover, for a long while as we reckon time, some years
indeed, I obeyed the injunction and sought the Great White Road no more.
At length the longing grew too strong for me and I returned thither, but
never again did the vision come. Its word was spoken, its mission was