"And all our dreams
Were lit with gleams
Of that lost land of reedy streams,
Along whose brim
Forever swim
Pan's lilies, laughing up at him."
And still the inspired singer held rapt sway.
"It is wonderful!" I whispered, under breath.
"Of course it is!" answered my friend. "But listen; there is more:"
"But yesterday!...
O blooms of May,
And summer roses--Where-away?
O stars above;
And lips of love,
And all the honeyed sweets thereof!
"O lad and lass.
And orchard-pass,
And briared lane, and daisied grass!
O gleam and gloom,
And woodland bloom,
And breezy breaths of all perfume!--
"No more for me
Or mine shall be
Thy raptures--save in memory,--
No more--no more--
Till through the Door
Of Glory gleam the days of yore."
This was the evident conclusion of the remarkable utterance, and the
Professor was impetuously fluttering his hands about the subject's
upward-staring eyes, stroking his temples, and snapping his fingers in
his face.
"Well," said Sweeney, as he stood suddenly awakened, and grinning in
an idiotic way, "how did the old thing work?" And it was in the
consequent hilarity and loud and long applause, perhaps, that the
Professor was relieved from the explanation of this rather astounding
phenomenon of the idealistic workings of a purely practical brain--or,
as my impious friend scoffed the incongruity later, in a particularly
withering allusion, as the "blank-blanked fallacy, don't you know, of
staying the hunger of a howling mob by feeding 'em on Spring poetry!"
The tumult of the audience did not cease even with the retirement of
Sweeney, and cries of "Hedrick! Hedrick!" only subsided with the
Professor's high-keyed announcement that the subject was even then
endeavoring to make himself heard, but could not until utter quiet was
restored, adding the further appeal that the young man had already
been a long time under the mesmeric spell, and ought not be so
detained for an unnecessary period.
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