And Ernest, on the other
hand, was moved and agitated by the living images which the poet flung
out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage-door
with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The sympathies of these
two men instructed them with a profounder sense than either could have
attained alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and made
delightful music which neither of them could have claimed as all his
own, nor distinguished his own share from the other's. They led one
another, as it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so
remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never entered it before,
and so beautiful that they desired to be there always.
As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
was bending forward to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's
glowing eyes.
"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he said.
The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.
"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, then--for I wrote
them."
Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the
poet's features; then turned towards the Great Stone Face; then back,
with an uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he
shook his head, and sighed.
"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.
"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the
fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when I read these poems, I hoped that
it might be fulfilled in you.
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