I think of thee... and many other memories, other pictures float before
me with thee everywhere, at every turn of my life I meet thee. Now an
old Russian garden rises up before me on the slope of a hillside,
lighted up by the last rays of the summer sun. Behind the silver poplars
peeps out the wooden roof of the manor-house with a thin curl of reddish
smoke above the white chimney, and in the fence a little gate stands
just ajar, as though some one had drawn it to with faltering hand; and I
stand and wait and gaze at that gate and the sand of the garden
path--wonder and rapture in my heart. All that I behold seems new and
different; over all a breath of some glad, brooding mystery, and already
I catch the swift rustle of steps, and I stand intent and alert as a
bird with wings folded ready to take flight anew, and my heart burns and
shudders in joyous dread before the approaching, the alighting
rapture....