As Erix and Zella, thus singing, drew nigh unto the grot where first their joys commingled, to flow on through life in no divided stream, two boys, the offspring of their love, came forth to meet them. The elder, from beneath whose locks, curled and dancing, reddened with the sun, full many a wild-flower peeped, bore grapes, ripe, fresh-plucked, and clutching, pressed the vintage with his hands. The younger, marching with an uncertain step, just babbling his first words, caught the generous juice in his tiny palms, cup-shaped, and offered to his mother, whose lips sought his, and rested, well content to drink only of that bliss which God has planted in a mother’s kiss. Then Erix, casting off his load, took the elder-born to his arms, and recounted all the chase—the scent of the perfumed morn, the song, the flight, the pursuit through wood and open plain, the halt by the sounding sea, the leap, the fatal shaft, the crowning death, till the boy shouted, and every muscle worked in mimic struggle with the mimic game a-foot; and the white pigeon descended, hovering o’er the group, and lighted at Zella’s feet, and arched its neck, and drooped its wings, and turned round and round; chrr-oo-uh; chrr-oo-uh; chrr-oo-eh-uh; oo-ugh; oo-ugh; chrr-oo-uh; calling to its mate.
SECTION XII.
And now, sweet friend, who put me to this task, who won my love, not knowing how or why, come tread with me the inner-chambers of my house. This, the portal, is well passed, and other scenes, and other pictures far, wait eyes which kindle, though the fire be false, eyes which flow even with the current of a fictitious wo.
[To be continued.
SONG.
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BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.
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(Air—“Homes of England.”)