She hesitated a moment, and half closed the book. Had he been standing
where he could see her face, he would have been shocked by its pallor.
It was over directly: she recovered herself, and, opening the music with
a resolute air, began to sing:--
"Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain and of cape;
But, O too fond, when have I answered thee?
Ask me no more.
"Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye;
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live:
Ask me no more."
She sang thus far with a clear, untrembling voice,--so clear and
untrembling as to be almost metallic,--the restraint she had put upon
herself making it unnatural. At the commencement she had estimated her
strength, and said, "It is sufficient!" but she had overtaxed it, as she
found in singing the last verse:--
"Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed;
I strove against the stream and all in vain;
Let the great river take me to the main;
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield:
Ask me no more."
All the longing, the passion, the prayer of which a human soul is
capable found expression in her voice. It broke through the affected
coldness and calm, as the ocean breaks through its puny barriers when,
after wind and tempest, all its mighty floods are out.
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