High up as the first circle, to mine eyes
Unwonted joy renewed.”[16]
and brought vividly back to memory his inimitable description of his entrance into the Garden of Eden, where he was to meet again his long-lost Beatrice.
To emphasize the illusion, there suddenly appeared under a noble moriche palm on the flower-enameled bank of the river and only a few rods from where we were standing, two children of the forest—a young man and a young woman—bride and groom, we loved to think—who were as Columbus found the American, as Adam and Eve were after the fall, when, in the words of Milton,
“Those leaves
They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe,
And with what skill they had, together sewed
To gird their waist.”
Handsome was the youth and beautiful was the maiden, strong as Hiawatha, fair as Minnehaha—both fit models for sculptor and painter, and such as the poet dreams of when depicting his heroes and heroines of the forest primeval.
Were they the king and queen of their tribe? Fancy said, “Yes.” But whether they were or not, one could say with truth that the tan-colored maid was like the one Raleigh met along this very same river and who, in his own words, “was as well fauored and as well shaped as euer I saw anie in England.”[17]