Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/282

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274
"BONES AND I."

mixed on palette more vivid and glowing than this description of a lover waiting for his mistress in her garden:—


"There falls a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate;
She is coming—my love—my dear!
She is coming—my life, my fate!
The red rose cries, She is near—she is near!
The white rose weeps,—She is late!
The larkspur listens,—I hear—I hear!
And the lily whispers,—I wait 1"


Is there not in these lines, besides grace, sentiment, pathos, tenderness, a wealth of pictorial fancy, such as Landseer himself has not outdone in his magical representation of clown and elves and stars and flowers grouped round Titania in Fairyland?

As in "clear-faced Arthur" is rendered the ideal dignity of love, so in Maud's hapless suitor we find exemplified its mad enthusiasm and passion. With both, self is unhesitatingly sacrificed to the welfare of another. When the fatal shot has been fired,