long enough to find a shape and sign for my guesses.'
'I will tell thee, then,' said Glaucus, passionately; '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 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
THE CONGREGATION.
FOLLOWED by Apaecides, the Nazarene gained the side of the Sarnus--that
river, which now has shrunk into a petty stream, then rushed gaily into
the sea, covered with countless vessels, and reflecting on its waves the
gardens, the vines, the palaces, and the temples of Pompeii. From its
more noisy and frequented banks, Olinthus directed his steps to a path
which ran amidst a shady vista of trees, at the distance of a few paces
from the river. This walk was in the evening a favorite resort of the
Pompeians, but during the heat and business of the day was seldom
visited, save by some groups of playful children, some meditative poet,
or some disputative philosophers. At the side farthest from the river,
frequent copses of box interspersed the more delicate and evanescent
foliage, and these were cut into a thousand quaint shapes, sometimes
into the forms of fauns and satyrs, sometimes into the mimicry of
Egyptian pyramids, sometimes into the letters that composed the name of
a popular or eminent citizen. Thus the false taste is equally ancient
as the pure; and the retired traders of Hackney and Paddington, a
century ago, were little aware, perhaps, that in their tortured yews and
sculptured box, they found their models in the most polished period of
Roman antiquity, in the gardens of Pompeii, and the villas of the
fastidious Pliny.
This walk now, as the noonday sun shone perpendicularly through the
chequered leaves, was entirely deserted; at least no other forms than
those of Olinthus and the priest infringed upon the solitude. They sat
themselves on one of the benches, placed at intervals between the trees,
and facing the faint breeze that came languidly from the river, whose
waves danced and sparkled before them--a singular and contrasted pair;
the believer in the latest--the priest of the most ancient--worship of
the world!
'Since thou leftst me so abruptly,' said Olinthus, 'hast thou been
happy? has thy heart found contentment under these priestly robes? hast
thou, still yearning for the voice of God, heard it whisper comfort to
thee from the oracles of Isis? That sigh, that averted countenance,
give me the answer my soul predicted.'
'Alas!' answered Apaecides, sadly, 'thou seest before thee a wretched
and distracted man! From my childhood upward I have idolized the dreams
of virtue! I have envied the holiness of men who, in caves and lonely
temples, have been admitted to the companionship of beings above the
world; my days have been consumed with feverish and vague desires; my
nights with mocking but solemn visions. Seduced by the mystic
prophecies of an impostor, I have indued these robes;--my nature (I
confess it to thee frankly)--my nature has revolted at what I have seen
and been doomed to share in! Searching after truth, I have become but
the minister of falsehoods. On the evening in which we last met, I was
buoyed by hopes created by that same impostor, whom I ought already to
have better known. I have--no matter--no matter! suffice it, I have
added perjury and sin to rashness and to sorrow. The veil is now rent
for ever from my eyes; I behold a villain where I obeyed a demigod; the
earth darkens in my sight; I am in the deepest abyss of gloom; I know
not if there be gods above; if we are the things of chance; if beyond
the bounded and melancholy present there is annihilation or an
hereafter--tell me, then, thy faith; solve me these doubts, if thou hast
indeed the power!'
'I do not marvel,' answered the Nazarene, 'that thou hast thus erred, or
that thou art thus sceptic. Eighty years ago there was no assurance to
man of God, or of a certain and definite future beyond the grave. New
laws are declared to him who has ears--a heaven, a true Olympus, is
revealed to him who has eyes--heed then, and listen.'
And with all the earnestness of a man believing ardently himself, and
zealous to convert, the Nazarene poured forth to Apaecides the
assurances of Scriptural promise. He spoke first of the sufferings and
miracles of Christ--he wept as he spoke: he turned next to the glories
of the Saviour's Ascension--to the clear predictions of Revelation. He
described that pure and unsensual heaven destined to the virtuous--those
fires and torments that were the doom of guilt.
The doubts which spring up to the mind of later reasoners, in the
immensity of the sacrifice of God to man, were not such as would occur
to an early heathen. He had been accustomed to believe that the gods
had lived upon earth, and taken upon themselves the forms of men; had
shared in human passions, in human labours, and in human misfortunes.
What was the travail of his own Alcmena's son, whose altars now smoked
with the incense of countless cities, but a toil for the human race?
Had not the great Dorian Apollo expiated a mystic sin by descending to
the grave? Those who were the deities of heaven had been the lawgivers
or benefactors on earth, and gratitude had led to worship. It seemed
therefore, to the heathen, a doctrine neither new nor strange, that
Christ had been sent from heaven, that an immortal had indued mortality,
and tasted the bitterness of death. And the end for which He thus toiled
and thus suffered--how far more glorious did it seem to Apaecides than
that for which the deities of old had visited the nether world, and
passed through the gates of death! Was it not worthy of a God to,
descend to these dim valleys, in order to clear up the clouds gathered
over the dark mount beyond--to satisfy the doubts of sages--to convert
speculation into certainty--by example to point out the rules of
life--by revelation to solve the enigma of the grave--and to prove that
the soul did not yearn in vain when it dreamed of an immortality? In
this last was the great argument of those lowly men destined to convert
the earth. As nothing is more flattering to the pride and the hopes of
man than the belief in a future state, so nothing could be more vague
and confused than the notions of the heathen sages upon that mystic
subject. Apaecides had already learned that the faith of the
philosophers was not that of the herd; that if they secretly professed a
creed in some diviner power, it was not the creed which they thought it
wise to impart to the community. He had already learned, that even the
priest ridiculed what he preached to the people--that the notions of the
few and the many were never united. But, in this new faith, it seemed
to him that philosopher, priest, and people, the expounders of the
religion and its followers, were alike accordant: they did not speculate
and debate upon immortality, they spoke of as a thing certain and
assured; the magnificence of the promise dazzled him--its consolations
soothed. For the Christian faith made its early converts among sinners!
many of its fathers and its martyrs were those who had felt the
bitterness of vice, and who were therefore no longer tempted by its
false aspect from the paths of an austere and uncompromising virtue.
All the assurances of this healing faith invited to repentance--they
were peculiarly adapted to the bruised and sore of spirit! the very
remorse which Apaecides felt for his late excesses, made him incline to
one who found holiness in that remorse, and who whispered of the joy in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth.
'Come,' said the Nazarene, as he perceived the effect he had produced,
'come to the humble hall in which we meet--a select and a chosen few;
listen there to our prayers; note the sincerity of our repentant tears;
mingle in our simple sacrifice--not of victims, nor of garlands, but
offered by white-robed thoughts upon the altar of the heart. The
flowers that we lay there are imperishable--they bloom over us when we
are no more; nay, they accompany us beyond the grave, they spring up
beneath our feet in heaven, they delight us with an eternal odor, for
they are of the soul, they partake of its nature; these offerings are
temptations overcome, and sins repented. Come, oh come! lose not another
moment; prepare already for the great, the awful journey, from darkness
to light, from sorrow to bliss, from corruption to immortality! This is
the day of the Lord the Son, a day that we have set apart for our
devotions. Though we meet usually at night, yet some amongst us are
gathered together even now. What joy, what triumph, will be with us
all, if we can bring one stray lamb into the sacred fold!'
There seemed to Apaecides, so naturally pure of heart, something
ineffably generous and benign in that spirit of conversation which
animated Olinthus--a spirit that found its own bliss in the happiness of
others--that sought in its wide sociality to make companions for
eternity. He was touched, softened, and subdued. He was not in that
mood which can bear to be left alone; curiosity, too, mingled with his
purer stimulants--he was anxious to see those rites of which so many
dark and contradictory rumours were afloat. He paused a moment, looked
over his garb, thought of Arbaces, shuddered with horror, lifted his
eyes to the broad brow of the Nazarene, intent, anxious, watchful--but
for his benefits, for his salvation! He drew his cloak round him, so as
wholly to conceal his robes, and said, 'Lead on, I follow thee.'
Olinthus pressed his hand joyfully, and then descending to the river
side, hailed one of the boats that plyed there constantly; they entered
it; an awning overhead, while it sheltered them from the sun, screened
also their persons from observation: they rapidly skimmed the wave.
From one of the boats that passed them floated a soft music, and its
prow was decorated with flowers--it was gliding towards the sea.
'So,' said Olinthus, sadly, 'unconscious and mirthful in their
delusions, sail the votaries of luxury into the great ocean of storm and
shipwreck! we pass them, silent and unnoticed, to gain the land.'
Apaecides, lifting his eyes, caught through the aperture in the awning a
glimpse of the face of one of the inmates of that gay bark--it was the
face of Ione. The lovers were embarked on the excursion at which we
have been made present. The priest sighed, and once more sunk back upon
his seat. They reached the shore where, in the suburbs, an alley of
small and mean houses stretched towards the bank; they dismissed the
