story was mine; until, grown weary with the life of years
condensed in an hour, or arrived at my deathbed, or the end of
the volume, I would awake, with a sudden bewilderment, to the
consciousness of my present life, recognising the walls and roof
around me, and finding I joyed or sorrowed only in a book. If
the book was a poem, the words disappeared, or took the
subordinate position of an accompaniment to the succession of
forms and images that rose and vanished with a soundless rhythm,
and a hidden rime.

In one, with a mystical title, which I cannot recall, I read of a
world that is not like ours. The wondrous account, in such a
feeble, fragmentary way as is possible to me, I would willingly
impart. Whether or not it was all a poem, I cannot tell; but,
from the impulse I felt, when I first contemplated writing it, to
break into rime, to which impulse I shall give way if it comes
upon me again, I think it must have been, partly at least, in
verse.





CHAPTER XII

"Chained is the Spring. The night-wind bold
Blows over the hard earth;
Time is not more confused and cold,
Nor keeps more wintry mirth.