‘But what do you think of the assault on the windmills, Marmion?’ said Lady Annabel.
’In the outset of his adventures, as in the outset of our lives, he was misled by his enthusiasm,’ replied Herbert, ’without which, after all, we can do nothing. But the result is, Don Quixote was a redresser of wrongs, and therefore the world esteemed him mad.’
In this vein, now conversing, now occupied with their pursuits, and occasionally listening to some passage which Herbert called to their attention, and which ever served as the occasion for some critical remarks, always as striking from their originality as they were happy in their expression, the freshness of the morning disappeared; the sun now crowned the valley with his meridian beam, and they re-entered the villa. The ladies returned to their cool saloon, and Herbert to his study.
It was there he amused himself by composing the following lines:
Spring in the apennines.
I.
Spring in the Apennine now holds her court
Within an amphitheatre of hills,
Clothed with the blooming chestnut; musical
With murmuring pines, waving their light
green cones
Like youthful Bacchants; while the dewy
grass,
The myrtle and the mountain violet,
Blend their rich odours with the fragrant
trees,
And sweeten the soft air. Above us
spreads
The purple sky, bright with the unseen
sun
The hills yet screen, although the golden
beam
Touches the topmost boughs, and tints
with light
The grey and sparkling crags. The
breath of morn
Still lingers in the valley; but the bee
With restless passion hovers on the wing,
Waiting the opening flower, of whose embrace
The sun shall be the signal. Poised
in air,
The winged minstrel of the liquid dawn,
The lark, pours forth his lyric, and responds
To the fresh chorus of the sylvan doves,
The stir of branches and the fall of streams,
The harmonies of nature!
II
Gentle Spring!
Once more, oh, yes! once more I feel thy
breath,
And charm of renovation! To the sky
Thou bringest light, and to the glowing
earth
A garb of grace: but sweeter than
the sky
That hath no cloud, and sweeter than the
earth
With all its pageantry, the peerless boon
Thou bearest to me, a temper like thine
own;
A springlike spirit, beautiful and glad!
Long years, long years of suffering, and
of thought
Deeper than woe, had dimmed the eager
eye
Once quick to catch thy brightness, and
the ear
That lingered on thy music, the harsh
world
Had jarred. The freshness of my life
was gone,
And hope no more an omen in thy bloom
Found of a fertile future! There
are minds,
Like lands, but with one season, and that
drear
Mine was eternal winter!
III.