188 



STORM AND WINTER. 



PuA'ence ? There, sheltered behind a I'oek, thou shalt find, I assure 

 thee, an Asiatic or Afiican winter. The gorge of Ollioules is worth 

 all the valleys of Syria. 



"No; I must^ depart. Others may tarry; for they have only to 

 gain the East. But me, my cradle summons me : I must see again 

 that glowing heaven, those luminous and sumptuous ruins where my 

 ancestors lived and sang ; I must plant my foot once more on my 

 earliest love, the rose of Asia ; I must bathe mj^self in the sunshine. 

 There is the mystery of life, there quickens the flame in which my 

 song shall be renewed ; my voice, my muse is the light." 



Thus, then, he takes wing ; but I think his heart must throb as 

 he draws near the Alps, Avhen their snowy peaks announce his 



^5 ^---v. 



approach to the terror-haunted gate on whose rocks are posted the 

 cruel children of day and night, the vulture, the eagle — all the hooked 

 and talon-armed robbers, athirst for the warm blood of life — the 

 accursed species which inspire the senseless poetry of man— some, 

 nohle murderers, which bleed quickly and drain the flowing tide ; 

 others, ignoble murderers, which choke and destroy ; — in a word, all 

 the hideous forms of murder and death. 



I imagine to myself, then, that the poor little musician whose 

 voice is silenced — not his ingegno, nor his delicate thought — having 



