Thy languid lily face.  Then later still,
  Unto the sofa by the window-sill
  Thy wasted body I shall carry, so
  That thou mays’t drink the last left lingering glow
  Of even, when the air is filled with scent
  Of blossoms; and my spirits shall be rent
  The while with many griefs.  Like some blue day
  That grows more lovely as it fades away,
  Gaining that calm serenity and height
  Of colour wanted, as the solemn night
  Steals forward thou shalt sweetly fall asleep
  For ever and for ever; I shall weep
  A day and night large tears upon thy face,
  Laying thee then beneath a rose-red place
  Where I may muse and dedicate and dream
  Volumes of poesy of thee; and deem
  It happiness to know that thou art far
  From any base desires as that fair star
  Set in the evening magnitude of heaven. 
  Death takes but little, yea, thy death has given
  Me that deep peace and immaculate possession
  Which man may never find in earthly passion.

The composition of the poem induced a period of literary passion, during which he composed much various matter, even part of his great poem, which he would have completed had he not been struck by an idea for a novel, and so imperiously, that he wrote the book straight from end to end.  It was sent to a London publisher, and it raised some tumult of criticism, none of which reached the author.  When it appeared he was far away, living in Arab tents, seeking pleasure at other sources.  For suddenly, when the strain of the composition of his book was relaxed, civilization had grown hateful to him; a picture by Fromantin, and that painter’s book, Un ete dans le Sahara, quickened the desire of primitive life; he sped away, and for nearly two years lived on the last verge of civilization, sometimes passing beyond it with the Bedouins into the interior, on slave-trading or rapacious expeditions.  The frequentation of these simple people calmed the fever of ennui, which had been consuming him.  Nature leads us to the remedy that the development of reason inflicts on the animal—­man.  And for more than a year Mike thought he had solved the problem of life; now he lived in peace—­passion had ebbed almost out of hearing, and in the plain satisfaction of his instincts he found happiness.

With the wild chieftains, their lances at rest, watching from behind a sandhill, he sometimes thought that the joy he experienced was akin to that which he had known in Sussex, when his days were spent in hunting and shooting; now, as then, he found relief by surrendering himself to the hygienics of the air and earth.  But his second return to animal nature had been more violent and radical; and it pleased him to think that he could desire nothing but the Arabs with whom he lived, and whose friendship he had won.  But qui a bu boira, and below consciousness dead appetites were awakening, and would soon be astir.