The sun, like a householder leaving his house for a time, was burning
up a thousand outworn things before he went; hence the smoke of
the dying hearth of summer was going up to the heavens; but there
was a heart of hope left, for, when farthest away, the sun is never
gone, and the snow is the earth's blanket against the frost. But,
alas, it was not Lady Florimel who thought these things! Looking
over her shoulder, and seeing both what she can and what she cannot
see, I am having a think to myself.
"Which it is an offence to utter in the temple of Art!" cry the
critics.
Not against Art, I think: but if it be an offence to the worshipper
of Art, let him keep silence before his goddess; for me, I am a
sweeper of the floors in the temple of Life, and his goddess is my
mare, and shall go in the dust cart; if I find a jewel as I sweep,
I will fasten it on the curtains of the doors, nor heed if it should
break the fall of a fold of the drapery.
Below Lady Florimel's oriel window, under the tall bridge, the burn
lay dark in a deep pool, with a slow revolving eddy, in which one
leaf, attended by a streak of white froth, was performing solemn
gyrations; away to the north the great sea was merry with waves
and spotted with their broken crests; heaped against the horizon,
it looked like a blue hill dotted all over with feeding sheep; but,
today, she never thought why the waters were so busy--to what
end they foamed and ran, flashing their laughter in the face of the
sun: the mood of nature was in harmony with her own, and she felt
no need to discover any higher import in its merriment.
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