’Glaucus to Ione sends more than he dares to utter.  Is Ione ill? thy slaves tell me “No”, and that assurance comforts me.  Has Glaucus offended Ione?—­ah! that question I may not ask from them.  For five days I have been banished from thy presence.  Has the sun shone?—­I know it not.  Has the sky smiled?—­it has had no smile for me.  My sun and my sky are Ione.  Do I offend thee?  Am I too bold?  Do I say that on the tablet which my tongue has hesitated to breathe?  Alas! it is in thine absence that I feel most the spells by which thou hast subdued me.  And absence, that deprives me of joy, brings me courage.  Thou wilt not see me; thou hast banished also the common flatterers that flock around thee.  Canst thou confound me with them?  It is not possible!  Thou knowest too well that I am not of them—­that their clay is not mine.  For even were I of the humblest mould, the fragrance of the rose has penetrated me, and the spirit of thy nature hath passed within me, to embalm, to sanctify, to inspire.  Have they slandered me to thee, Ione?  Thou wilt not believe them.  Did the Delphic oracle itself tell me thou wert unworthy, I would not believe it; and am I less incredulous than thou I think of the last time we met—­of the song which I sang to thee—­of the look that thou gavest me in return.  Disguise it as thou wilt, Ione, there is something kindred between us, and our eyes acknowledged it, though our lips were silent.  Deign to see me, to listen to me, and after that exclude me if thou wilt.  I meant not so soon to say I loved.  But those words rush to my heart—­they will have way.  Accept, then, my homage and my vows.  We met first at the shrine of Pallas; shall we not meet before a softer and a more ancient altar?

’Beautiful! adored Ione!  If my hot youth and my Athenian blood have misguided and allured me, they have but taught my wanderings to appreciate the rest—­the haven they have attained.  I hang up my dripping robes on the Sea-god’s shrine.  I have escaped shipwreck.  I have found thee.  Ione, deign to see me; thou art gentle to strangers, wilt thou be less merciful to those of thine own land?  I await thy reply.  Accept the flowers which I send—­their sweet breath has a language more eloquent than words.  They take from the sun the odorous they return—­they are the emblem of the love that receives and repays tenfold—­the emblem of the heart that drunk thy rays, and owes to thee the germ of the treasures that it proffers to thy smile.  I send these by one whom thou wilt receive for her own sake, if not for mine.  She, like us, is a stranger; her fathers’ ashes lie under brighter skies:  but, less happy than we, she is blind and a slave.  Poor Nydia!  I seek as much as possible to repair to her the cruelties of Nature and of Fate, in asking permission to place her with thee.  She is gentle, quick, and docile.  She is skilled in music and the song; and she is a very Chloris to the flowers.  She thinks, Ione, that thou wilt love her:  if thou dost not, send her back to me.