Chapter III: Section III

From a deep, embowered grot—half-hidden within a grove of oranges, and trellised with the woodbine and the grape, clustering—came a sweet voice, singing; not with the musical cadence and alliteration, and returning rhyme of later days, when intellect refined to weaken, but with the promptings of the soul, gushing, unmeasured, finding speech as it might.

“Call, call to your mate, happy bird, and she shall call to you again; but where is he who should call to me, in this day of joy? Erix, my Erix, rising like the sun in his strength, with broad shoulders, and a brow moulded by God! And the glory of his head, brighter than the beams of the morning; those curls which I, with merry fingers, have so often twisted, until they sprang from me with life and laughter, and clung about his neck, kissingly—why do they not dance before me, gladdening my sight? And those arms, like twisted vines, which hold and give every happiness—why are they not here to receive me? And those lips, which are so used to praise me, until I wonder at my own comeliness, and lose my breath in their thieving—why are they not here to bless me, with their music so subduing? And those eyes, so large and deep, those wells of passion, in which I live a double being, in which I see my own blushing—why are they not here, to kindle and to burn? Oh! Erix, my Erix, as flowers love the earth, as the earth loves the sun, as the sun loves its Maker, so is my love for thee, most beautiful and most excellent!”