Julius LeVallon by Algernon Blackwood

"Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth, Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea; Thy face remembered is from other worlds. It has been died for, though I know not when, It has been sung of, though I know not where. It has the strangeness of the luring West, And of sad sea-horizons; beside thee I am aware of other times and lands, Of birth far back, of lives in many stars." "Marpessa" (Stephen Phillips).

During sleep, however, the heavier emotions had sunk to the bottom, the lighter had risen to the top. I woke with a feeling of vigour, and with the sense called "common" distinctly in the ascendant. Through the open window came sunshine in a flood, the crisp air sparkled. I could taste it from my bed. Youth ran in my veins and ten years seemed to drop from my back as I sprang up and thrust my face into the radiant morning. Drawing a deep draught into my lungs, I must at the same time have unconsciously exclaimed, for the peasant girl gathering vegetables below the garden, such as it was, merged into the pastures looked up startled. She had been singing to herself. I withdrew my pyjamaed figure hurriedly, while she, as hurriedly, let drop the skirts the dew had made her lift so high; and when I peeped a moment later, she had gone.