fit seized me, I would wander away and lie down in the hollow, gazing
at the spot where the lovely face had arisen, in the fancy, hardly in
the hope, that my moon might once more arise and bless me with her
vision.

Hence I suppose came another habit of mine, that of watching in the
same hollow, and in the same posture, now for the sun, now for the
moon, but generally for the sun. You might have taken me for a
fire-worshipper, so eagerly would I rise when the desire came upon me,
so hastily in the clear grey of the morning would I dress myself, lest
the sun should be up before me, and I fail to catch his first
lance-like rays dazzling through the forest of grass on the edge of my
hollow world. Bare-footed I would scud like a hare through the dew,
heedless of the sweet air of the morning, heedless of the few
bird-songs about me, heedless even of the east, whose saffron might
just be burning into gold, as I ran to gain the green hollow whence
alone I would greet the morning. Arrived there, I shot into its
shelter, and threw myself panting on the grass, to gaze on the spot at
which I expected the rising glory to appear. Ever when I recall the
custom, that one lark is wildly praising over my head, for he sees the
sun for which I am waiting. He has his nest in the hollow beside me. I
would sooner have turned my back on the sun than disturbed the home of
his high-priest, the lark. And now the edge of my horizon begins to
burn; the green blades glow in their tops; they are melted through with
light; the flashes invade my eyes; they gather; they grow, until I hide
my face in my hands. The sun is up. But on my hands and my knees I rush
after the retreating shadow, and, like a child at play with its nurse,
hide in its curtain. Up and up comes the peering sun; he will find me;
I cannot hide from him; there is in the wide field no shelter from his
gaze. No matter then. Let him shine into the deepest corners of my