nothing more of the train of youths who followed him, "and," (thus sadly
the poet makes her speak)

"how I gained my home
I knew not; some strange fever wasted me.
Ten days and nights I lay upon my bed.
O tell me, mistress Moon, whence came my love!"

"Then" (she continues) when Delphis at last crossed her threshold:

"I
Became all cold like snow, and from my brow
Brake the damp dewdrops: utterance I had none,
Not e'en such utterance as a babe may make
That babbles to its mother in its dreams;
But all my fair frame stiffened into wax,--
O tell me mistress Moon, whence came my love!"

Whence came her love? thence, whence it comes to us now. The love of
the creature to its Creator, of man to God, is the grand and yet gracious
gift of Christianity. Christ's command to love our neighbor called into
existence not only the conception of philanthropy, but of humanity
itself, an idea unknown to the heathen world, where love had been at
widest limited to their native town and country. The love of man and
wife has without doubt been purified and transfigured by Christianity;
still it is possible that a Greek may have loved as tenderly and
longingly as a Christian. The more ardent glow of passion at least
cannot be denied to the ancients. And did not their love find vent in
the same expressions as our own? Who does not know the charming
roundelay: