At first they chased them wildly; but one might as well try to catch a moonbeam, which has not so many places to hide as a wood-mouse.

"What a horrible threat, you cruel little moonbeam!

But the girl's gaze was not following the moonbeams.

Who takes for brightening eyes the stars, For locks the still moonbeam, Sighs through the dews of evening peacefully Falling, "Dream!"? THULE

Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence obscured the moonbeams.

So away they went, in a great hurry, but to no purpose; for when they came to the said pool, no vestige of a creature being therein they could see, except some air-bubbles reflecting the moonbeams, and containing, no doubt, the living breath of the drowned woman.

But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call.