Part Three Poet and Angel Chapter 40 In The Cathedral

And as his gaze rested on the perfect fairness of the day, a strange and sudden sense of rapturous anticipation possessed his mind,--he felt as one prepared for some high and exquisite happiness,--some great and wondrous celebration or feast of joy! The thoughts of death, on which he had brooded so persistently during the past yester-eve, had fled, leaving no trace behind,--only a keen and vigorous delight in life absorbed him now. It was good to be alive, even on this present earth! it was good to see, to feel, to know! and there was much to be thankful for in the mere capability of easy and healthful breathing!

Full of a singular light-heartedness, he hummed a soft tune to himself as he moved about his room,--his desire to view the interior of the Cathedral had not abated with sleep, but had rather augmented,--and he resolved to visit it now, while he had the chance of beholding it in all the impressive splendor of uncrowded tranquillity. For he knew that by the time he was dressed, the first Mass would be over,--the priests and people would be gone,--and he would be alone to enjoy the magnificence of the place in full poet-luxury,--the luxury of silence and solitude.

He attired himself quickly, and with a vaguely nervous eagerness,--he was in almost as great a hurry to enter the Dom as he had been to arrive at the Field of Ardath! The same feverish impatience was upon him--impatience that he was conscious of, yet could not account for,--his fancy busied itself with a whole host of memories, and fragments of half-forgotten love-songs he had written in his youth, came back to him without his wish or will,-- songs that he instinctively felt belonged to his Past, when as "Sah-luma" he had won golden opinions in Al-Kyris. And though they were but echoes, they seemed this morning to touch him with half- pleasing, half-tender suggestiveness,--two lines especially from the Idyl of Roses he had penned so long,--ah! so very long ago,-- came floating through his brain like a message sent from some other world,-"By the pureness of love shall our glory in loving increase, And the roses of passion for us are the lilies of peace."