But I come down from the golden stars, for the white-robed one has
raised her wand again, and we float away through the glowing gates of
the sunrise, over the purple waves, over the vine-lands of sunny
France, in among the shadows of the storied Pyrenees. Sorrow and
sighing have fled away. Tragedy no longer "in sceptred pall comes
sweeping by"; but young lambs leap in wild frolic, silken-fleeced sheep
lie on the slopes of the hills, and shepherd calls to shepherd from his
mountain-peak. Peaceful hamlets lie far down the valley, and every
gentle height blooms with a happy home. Dark-eyed Basque girls dance
through the fruitful orchards. I see the gleam of their scarlet scarfs
wound in with their bold black hair. I hear their rich voices trilling
the lays of their land, and ringing with happy laughter. But I mount
higher and yet higher, till gleam and voice are lost. Here the
freshening air sweeps down, and the low gurgle of living water purling
out from cool, dark chasms, mingles with the shepherd's flute. Here the
young shepherd himself climbs, leaping from rock to rock, supple,
strong, brave, and free as the soul of his race,--the same iron in his
sinews, and the same fire in his blood that dealt the "dolorous rout"
to Charlemagne a thousand years ago. Sweetly across the path of
Roncesvalles blow the evening gales, wafting tender messages to the
listening girls below. Green grows the grass and gay the flowers that
spring from the blood of princely paladins, the flower of chivalry. No
bugle-blast can bring old Roland back, though it wind long and loud
through the echoing woods. Lads and lasses, worthy scions of valiant
stems, may sit on happy evenings in the shadow of the vines, or group
themselves on the greensward in the pauses of the dance, and sing their
songs of battle and victory,--the olden legends of their heroic sires;
but the strain that floats down from e darkening slopes into their
heart of hearts, the song that reddens in their glowing cheeks, and
throbs in their throbbing breasts, and shines in their dewy eyes, is
not the shock of deadly onset, glorious though it be. It is the sweet
old song,--old, yet ever new,--whose burden is,

Come live with me and be my love,"--

old, yet always new,--sweet and tender, and not to be gainsaid, whether
it be piped to a shepherdess in Arcadia, or whether a princess hears it
from princely lips in her palace on the sea.

But the mountain shadows stretch do