Once again the bells of midnight chimed from St. Gudula’s towers,
While St. Michael watched the city slumbering through the ghostly
hours.
But no slumber came to Rena where she moaned in bitter pain,
For the anguish of that parting wrought its work on heart and brain.
Suddenly the air grew heavy as with magical perfume,
And a weird and wondrous splendor filled the dim and silent room.
In the middle of the chamber stood a lady fair and sweet,
With bright tresses falling softly to her small and sandalled feet.
Flushed her cheeks were as a wild rose, and the glory of her eyes
Was the laughing light and glory of the kindling morning skies.
Airy robes of lightest tissue from her white arms floated free;
They seemed woven of the mist that curls above the azure sea,
Wrought in curious devices, star and wheel and leaf and flower,
That, like frost upon a window-pane, might vanish in an hour.
In her hands she bore a cushion, quaintly fashioned, strangely set
With small silver pins that spanned it like a branching coronet;
And from threads of finest texture swung light bobbins to and fro,
As the lady stood illumined in the weird and wondrous glow.
Not a single word she uttered; but, as silent as a shade,
Down the room she swiftly glided and beside the startled maid
Knelt, a radiant vision, smiling into Rena’s wondering eyes,
Giving arch yet gracious answer to her tremulous surprise.
Then she laid the satin cushion on the wondering maiden’s knee,
And to all her mute bewilderment, no syllable spake she.
But, as in and out and round about, the silver pins among,
Flashed the white hand of the lady, and the shining bobbins swung,
Lo! a web of fairy lightness like the misty robe she wore,
Swiftly grew beneath her fingers, drifting downward to the floor!
And as Rena looked and wondered, inch by inch the marvel grew,
Till the eastern windows brightened as the gray dawn struggled
through.
Then the lady’s hand touched Rena’s, and she pointed far away,
Where the palace towers were gleaming in the first red light of day.
But when once again the maiden turned her glance within the room,
With the lady fair had vanished all the splendor and perfume.
Still the satin cushion lay there, quaintly fashioned, strangely set
With the silver pins that spanned it like a branching coronet;
Still the light web she had woven lay in drifts upon the floor,
Like the mist wreaths resting softly on some lone, enchanted shore!