The song was perfect. The strange, fresh accents of the singers, so full of love and passion, melted every heart in the temple with their ecstasy. One might hear such measures without thought of lapse of time or of worldly concerns. Ah! if one could hear such melody forevermore!
With a burst of dramatic joy the singing of the last stanza revealed whole worlds of rapture.
Reincarnated in an earthly heaven, Now have we reached Nirvana, now Above us open the wide gulfs of joy, And luminous and glorious round us blow Millions of flowers; while afar there shines The mighty splendor of the exhaustless sea! We dwell in breathless joys, thrilled through and through With majesty and sweetness; we have grown Athletes of joy in our Agapemone: Eager and breathless, we have found at last The fount of youth, the magical Arjeels; Fruits of organic gold amid the leaves Sparkle, and around our island home Are spread the veritable golden sands Whereon our happy feet tread evermore!
The singers disappeared, and in their places a hundred wondrously-arrayed figures moved in the dance of pure being on the silver pavement. Lithe as leopards, with unclad limbs and feet, priest and priestess danced all the ecstasies of Egyplosis. The dancers were so young, so fresh, so tender, so beautiful, and so innocent, that it was a supreme joy to behold them. Rapture grew universal and lovers cried with hysterical shudderings. The rainbow-colored throng, moving to the music of the golden instruments, flashed upon the pavement like joy taking possession of the world!
I felt intensely sad for Lyone, who sat like a statue of golden marble, gazing on the abyss of joy beneath. Had the goddess no lover to press her to his heart amid the universal rapture? Alas! the immense dignity of her position and the unalterable laws of Atvatabar alike prevented any single soul from feeding the intense hunger that consumed her.
Accompanying the dancers, the unseen choir in the cloisters began to sing a new opera of love, and the strains of an "Ave, Lyone, bona dea," stole upon the senses like the bewildering sighs of angels, making one ache with delight. A story of romantic love once more sculptured the faces of priest and priestess with angelic beauty, as it rose on wings of song and swept in delightful moans upon the carven stone.