I think 'twas here—though now I know not whether
Dead joy or living sorrow be the dream—
In this same tent—round which the branches seem
To stir their whispering leaves as if to tell
The morn the dreadful secret of the Dell—
I think 'twas here we lived that life together.
(A shape that at one moment seems like a hand, and
then a feather of gold, appears in the eastern clouds
near the brightening wings of the Spirit of the Sunrise.)
My senses mock me: these mad eyes behold
What seems a hand, a mystic hand of gold,
Traced on the steaming canvas of the mist,
Gilding the woof of pearl and amethyst—
A hand or golden feather.
(Beside the Golden Hand Rhona's face appears.)
Is that a picture in a madman's eye?
Or is it Memory, like a mocking elf,
Weaving Hope's tapestry to cheat herself?
Or does great Nature, she who garners all
The fleeting pictures Time can limn, recall
The face of her the Romanies doomed to die?
Or is there glowing a face from brow to chin
Where yonder wings of morn are widening thin,
Her very face, her throat, her dimpling cheek,
Her mouth—the mouth that love first taught to speak—
Smiling, “'Tis I, 'tis I”?
