And
turning as if in hope to share my enthusiasm, a childish peal of
laughter showed me I was not alone.
Beneath a canopy of holly branches and yew two children sat playing.
The nearer child's hair was golden, glistening round his face of
roses, and he it was who had laughed, tumbling on the sward. But the
face of the further child was white almost as crystal, and the dark
hair that encircled his head with its curved lines seemed as it were
the shadow of the gold it showed beside. These children, it was plain,
had been running and playing across the tombs; but now they were
stooping together at some earnest sport. To me, even if they had seen
me, they as yet paid no heed.
I passed slowly towards them, deeming them at first of solitude's
creation, my eyes dazzled so with the sun. But as I approached, so the
branches beneath which they played gradually disparted, and I saw not
far distant from them one sitting who evidently had these jocund boys
in charge.
I could not but hesitate awhile as I surveyed them. These were no
mortal children playing naked amid the rose of evening: nor she who
sat veiled and beautiful beneath the ruinous tombs.
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