Part 13 (1/2)

Ah! sweeter to sink while the sky is serene, If time hath a change for thy heart!

If to live be to weep over what thou hast been, Let me die while I know what thou art!

As the last words of the song trembled over the sea, Ione raised her looks-they met those of her lover. Happy Nydia!-happy in thy affliction, that thou couldst not see that fascinated and charmed gaze, that said so much-that made the eye the voice of the soul-that promised the impossibility of change!

But, though the Thessalian could not detect that gaze, she divined its meaning by their silence-by their sighs. She pressed her hands lightly across her breast, as if to keep down its bitter and jealous thoughts; and then she hastened to speak-for that silence was intolerable to her.

'After all, O Glaucus!' said she, 'there is nothing very mirthful in your strain!'

'Yet I meant it to be so, when I took up thy lyre, pretty one. Perhaps happiness will not permit us to be mirthful.'

'How strange is it,' said Ione, changing a conversation which oppressed her while it charmed-'that for the last several days yonder cloud has hung motionless over Vesuvius! Yet not indeed motionless, for sometimes it changes its form; and now methinks it looks like some vast giant, with an arm outstretched over the city. Dost thou see the likeness-or is it only to my fancy?'

'Fair Ione! I see it also. It is astonis.h.i.+ngly distinct. The giant seems seated on the brow of the mountain, the different shades of the cloud appear to form a white robe that sweeps over its vast breast and limbs; it seems to gaze with a steady face upon the city below, to point with one hand, as thou sayest, over its glittering streets, and to raise the other (dost thou note it?) towards the higher heaven. It is like the ghost of some huge t.i.tan brooding over the beautiful world he lost; sorrowful for the past-yet with something of menace for the future.'

'Could that mountain have any connection with the last night's earthquake? They say that, ages ago, almost in the earliest era of tradition, it gave forth fires as AEtna still. Perhaps the flames yet lurk and dart beneath.'

'It is possible,' said Glaucus, musingly.

'Thou sayest thou art slow to believe in magic,' said Nydia, suddenly. 'I have heard that a potent witch dwells amongst the scorched caverns of the mountain, and yon cloud may be the dim shadow of the demon she confers with.'

'Thou art full of the romance of thy native Thessaly,' said Glaucus; 'and a strange mixture of sense and all conflicting superst.i.tions.'

'We are ever superst.i.tious in the dark,' replied Nydia. 'Tell me,' she added, after a slight pause, 'tell me, O Glaucus! do all that are beautiful resemble each other? They say you are beautiful, and Ione also. Are your faces then the same? I fancy not, yet it ought to be so.'

'Fancy no such grievous wrong to Ione,' answered Glaucus, laughing. 'But we do not, alas! resemble each other, as the homely and the beautiful sometimes do. Ione's hair is dark, mine light; Ione's eyes are-what color, Ione? I cannot see, turn them to me. Oh, are they black? no, they are too soft. Are they blue? no, they are too deep: they change with every ray of the sun-I know not their color: but mine, sweet Nydia, are grey, and bright only when Ione s.h.i.+nes on them! Ione's cheek is...'

'I do not understand one word of thy description,' interrupted Nydia, peevishly. 'I comprehend only that you do not resemble each other, and I am glad of it.'

'Why, Nydia?' said Ione.

Nydia colored slightly. 'Because,' she replied, coldly, 'I have always imagined you under different forms, and one likes to know one is right.'

'And what hast thou imagined Glaucus to resemble?' asked Ione, softly.

'Music!' replied Nydia, looking down.

'Thou art right,' thought Ione.

'And what likeness hast thou ascribed to Ione?'

'I cannot tell yet,' answered the blind girl; 'I have not yet known her long enough to find a shape and sign for my guesses.'

'I will tell thee, then,' said Glaucus, pa.s.sionately; 'she is like the sun that warms-like the wave that refreshes.'

'The sun sometimes scorches, and the wave sometimes drowns,' answered Nydia.

'Take then these roses,' said Glaucus; 'let their fragrance suggest to thee Ione.'

'Alas, the roses will fade!' said the Neapolitan, archly.

Thus conversing, they wore away the hours; the lovers, conscious only of the brightness and smiles of love; the blind girl feeling only its darkness-its tortures-the fierceness of jealousy and its woe!

And now, as they drifted on, Glaucus once more resumed the lyre, and woke its strings with a careless hand to a strain, so wildly and gladly beautiful, that even Nydia was aroused from her reverie, and uttered a cry of admiration.

'Thou seest, my child,' cried Glaucus, 'that I can yet redeem the character of love's music, and that I was wrong in saying happiness could not be gay. Listen, Nydia! listen, dear Ione! and hear: THE BIRTH OF LOVE

I

Like a Star in the seas above, Like a Dream to the waves of sleep- Up-up-THE INCARNATE LOVE- She rose from the charmed deep!

And over the Cyprian Isle The skies shed their silent smile; And the Forest's green heart was rife With the stir of the gus.h.i.+ng life- The life that had leap'd to birth, In the veins of the happy earth!

Hail! oh, hail!

The dimmest sea-cave below thee, The farthest sky-arch above, In their innermost stillness know thee: And heave with the Birth of Love!

Gale! soft Gale!

Thou comest on thy silver winglets, From thy home in the tender west, Now fanning her golden ringlets, Now hush'd on her heaving breast.

And afar on the murmuring sand, The Seasons wait hand in hand To welcome thee, Birth Divine, To the earth which is henceforth thine.

II

Behold! how she kneels in the sh.e.l.l, Bright pearl in its floating cell!

Behold! how the sh.e.l.l's rose-hues, The cheek and the breast of snow, And the delicate limbs suffuse, Like a blush, with a bashful glow.

Sailing on, slowly sailing O'er the wild water; All hail! as the fond light is hailing Her daughter, All hail!

We are thine, all thine evermore: Not a leaf on the laughing sh.o.r.e, Not a wave on the heaving sea, Nor a single sigh In the boundless sky, But is vow'd evermore to thee!