We had drawn the God Eros from that wave, and now we felt
that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers.
The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race, came
thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted,
and together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the
Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange,
brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no
flowers had been known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened;
and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up
in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life
arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all
gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The
golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which
issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled, at length, into a
lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of Aeolus-sweeter
than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too, a voluminous cloud,
which we had long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated out
thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and settling in peace
above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower, until its edges rested
upon the tops of the mountains, turning all their dimness into
magnificence, and shutting us up, as if forever, within a magic
prison-house of grandeur and of glory.
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