The night hed a thousand eye thousand wonders and @ thousand aganice, "it lay ite thick lacs hand, ma with cummer, over the city Ghd stroked reality from a@ thousand sounds, wntit"
The Uquid notes of the blind beggar's bell, dropping one by one dri sharp sequence on the pulsing might, lost poignancy, gained mystery.' A black cat slides across the pavement as a shadow across the moon. The strident monotone "Chinese fiddler came muffled to the Iatticed quarters where a princess motionless throughout the above the city, high in star As though through damp black burlap came all living sounds. For the night had silenced the city's gongs, had soothed its tremors, hushed its Inughter, while it droped in heavy-lidded grief over the bier on which the _princess lay.
She, who lay, was very fair, even thus in the night's embrace." Her name had "flame of life in many.
Tay so still, quietude clinging to her like a veil so that, clad in a gossamer gown, her body's long white lines penetrated the gloom with icy calm, Oh, the wonderment of life and death, need other brilliance than their own in the moon's silent wake.
Smoke Spirals O'er The Bier But the pungent essence of burning tapers floated high above the princess on her bier, touching her hair, her hands, her feet. Dust of life "in the circling smoke haunted dead footsteps of the sleeping princess. A breeze might stir the ancient leaves"beyond the railing of the bier, or flick their fiery pricks of light until the tapers glowed bright red, but the princess would not feel the fanning touch.
The white scroll of her brow, filled with the splendour of undeciphered mystery, melted into the waxy languor of her eye-lids sheltering many shadows wherein were veiled much misty laughter much fervid joy, the hauteur of a princess and the pain of many men.
'Then, like a film across her cheek the night flung a tendril of the princess' hair which strove to break the perfect outline of her face within its moon-bathed frame.
For the princess lay in the 1 splendour of moon-light, like life in death, motionless as marble under The buzz-saw me: ady of a mosquito haunted the night, clung for a moment to the black mystery of the princess's hair upon her check. a path of ebony lustre of her hair. fervid lotus lies lay the princess's hands upon their hapless couch. Smoke coiled about them from the gleam-tipped tapers of her hi Jewels they wore not, save their 2 own white gleam, nor did the slim white fect, pointing towards the moon, spell-bound with mystery, Awakened by its mystic kiss, the princess sat upright upon her bier among the ten gleam-tipped and smoking tapers.
"Good Lord,' quoth she, "ten joss sticks are not enough to let me sleep in peace without a net on this verandah." And the night sighed with relief again to sce her stir—By Jill O'Lantern.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.