The Wildfire Club - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

LIFE. 117
'Twas midnight, and still the widow watched the moveless
dead. Her selfish grief enchained her to his bier, and
the frail ·and delicately-nurtured lady, who, with dripping
garments and sinking frame, had scarce withstood the action
of the storm, the late terrific scene and present desolation,
lay in a corner of the room beneath a thin old rug, while
her distracted father hung in helpless agony over her evidently
dying form. Suddenly the red glare of the pine
torch became extinct, while a light, soft, mellow, and unearthly,
diffused itself throughout the hu.t, and gilded the
scene with more than midday power. A low strain of
music, at first so distant that it sounded like an echo from
another world, but growing nearer until it filled the whole
chamber with delicious melody, crept over the listening ear,
and stilled the mourners into silent transport. And now
revolving mists floated around, first dimly shadowing every
object to their view, then forming into a gauzy medium, in
which they saw reflected a diorama of a scene more fair
than mortal eyes had ever beheld before.
The fabled paradise· of Persia, the Elysian fields which
ancients loved to dream of, no fabled Eden ever was so fair
all this most radiant landscape; while moving here and
there were forms of light and joyous faces seen, whom each
remembered to have perished in the storm. There was the
patient mother with her smiling babe, the little ship-boy,
and the captain bold, each gallant mate, and, last of all,
they saw the strong, brave men who perished in the strife,
to save the wailing, helpless, shipwrecked crew. The brave
young fisherman, the w.idow's love, with free, bold step and
smiling face, was there, and he it was whose soft, low speech
was heard sounding from out the mist-the voice of one,
rolling from an illimitable distance, and yet borne, free,
clear, and bell-like, through the realms of space.