dernesses of
dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall slender stems stood not
upright, but slanted gracefully toward the light that peered at noon-day
into the centre of the valley. Their mark was speckled with the vivid
alternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save
the cheeks of Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant green of the huge
leaves that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying
with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of Syria
doing homage to their sovereign the Sun.

Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with
Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one evening at
the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the fourth of my own,
that we sat, locked in each other's embrace, beneath the serpent-like
trees, and looked down within the water of the River of Silence at our
images therein. We spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day, and
our words even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. 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.

The loveline