Even my adventure of the preceding evening with the lady of the beech-tree contributed to arouse the wild hope, that by some means life might be given to this form also, and that, breaking from her alabaster tomb, she might glorify my eyes with her presence.

"For," I argued, "who can tell but this cave may be the home of Marble, and this, essential Marble--that spirit of marble which, present throughout, makes it capable of being moulded into any form?
Then if she should awake! But how to awake her?
A kiss awoke the Sleeping Beauty! a kiss cannot reach her through the incrusting alabaster." I kneeled, however, and kissed the pale coffin; but she slept on.

I bethought me of Orpheus, and the following stones--that trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising now.

Might not a song awake this form, that the glory of motion might for a time displace the loveliness of rest?
Sweet sounds can go where kisses may not enter.
I sat and thought.

Now, although always delighting in music, I had never been gifted with the power of song, until I entered the fairy forest.