Melmoth the Wanderer, Vol. 3
its dangers, was singing her wild song of desperation and love to the echoes of the advancing storm. Some words of this strain of despair and passion reached the ear of the stranger. They were thus:

“The night is growing dark—but what is that to the darkness that his absence has cast on my soul? The lightnings are glancing round me—but what are they to the gleam of his eye when he parted from me in anger?

“I lived but in the light of his presence—why should I not die when that light is withdrawn? Anger of the clouds, what have I to fear from you? You may scorch me to dust, as I have seen you scorch the branches of the eternal trees—but the trunk still remained, and my heart will be his for ever.

“Roar on, terrible ocean! thy waves, which I cannot count, can never wash his image from my soul,—thou dashest a thousand waves against a rock, but the rock is unmoved—and so would be my heart amid the calamities of the world with which he threatens me,—whose dangers I never would have known but for him, and whose dangers for him I will encounter.”

“She paused in her wild song, and then renewed it, regardless alike of the terrors of the elements, and the possible presence of one whose subtle and poisonous potency was more fatal than all the elements in their united wrath.

“When we first met, my bosom was covered with roses—now it is shaded with the dark leaves of the ocynum. When he saw me first, the living things all loved me—now I care not whether they love me or not—I have forgot to love them. When he came to the isle every night, I hoped the moon would be bright—now I care not whether she rises or sets, whether she is clouded or bright. Before he came, every thing loved me, and I had more things to love than I could reckon by the hairs of my head—now I feel I can love but one, and that one has deserted me. Since I have seen him all things have changed. The flowers have not the colours they once had—there is no music in the flow of the waters—the stars do not smile on me from heaven as they did,—and I myself begin to love the storm better than the calm.”

“As she ended her melancholy strain, she turned from the spot where the increasing fury of the storm made it no longer possible for her to stand, and turning, met the gaze of the stranger fixed on her. A suffusion, the most rich and vivid, mantled over her from brow to bosom; she did not utter her usual exclamation of joy at his sight, but, with averted eyes and faultering step, followed him as he pointed her to seek 
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