‘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 gushing 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 shell,
Bright pearl in its floating cell! 
Behold! how the shell’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 shore,
Not a wave on the heaving sea,
Nor a single sigh
In the boundless sky,
But is vow’d evermore to thee!

III

And thou, my beloved one—­thou,
As I gaze on thy soft eyes now,
Methinks from their depths I view
The Holy Birth born anew;
Thy lids are the gentle cell
Where the young Love blushing lies;
See! she breaks from the mystic shell,
She comes from thy tender eyes! 
Hail! all hail! 
She comes, as she came from the sea,
To my soul as it looks on thee;
She comes, she comes! 
She comes, as she came from the sea,
To my soul as it looks on thee! 
Hail! all hail!

Chapter III