THE PROSCRIBED. 



317 



templating this spectacle, the eye-lids of the stranger were moistened 

 by the feelilest of all human tears, a tear excited by powerful recollec- 

 tions. Godfrey was weeping also as he gazed admiringly on the 

 heavens. His palpitating hand encountered that of his aged com- 

 panion, who, turning, sutfered his emotion to be seen, and probably 

 to save his dignity as a man, which he might fear to have com- 

 promised, he said to him in a voice of deep emotion, " I weep my 

 country ! I am banished ! Young man, at this very hour I quitted 

 my country. But there, at this hour, the glow-worms were issuing 

 from their frail dwellings, and suspending themselves like so many 

 diamonds to the stems of the glader. At this hour the breeze, sweet 

 as the sweetest poesy, arose in a valley steeped in light and exhaling 

 the most delicious perfumes. I could see on the horizon a city of 

 o-old, like to the celestial /erwsa/ew!, a city whose name my lips would 

 refuse to pronounce in a stranger-land. There, also, wound a river 

 in its serpentine course. This city and its river, of which the build- 

 ings, the ravishing perspectives, the sheets of sky-tinted water, were 

 successively commingling, uniting, separating — harmonious oontest, 

 which rejoiced my eyes and inspired me with love— where are they? 

 At this hour, the waves assumed, under the luminous heaven of the 

 setting sun, fantastic tints, and were figured with capricious pictures. 

 The stars were distilling a caressing light. The moon spread every 

 where her gracious snares, and gave another life to trees, colours, and 

 forms. She was diversifying the brilliant waters, and mute hills, 

 animating rocks and edifices. The tapers were lighting at that 

 moment in the palaces and mansions of my country ! My country, 

 my beloved, to which I was saying adieu ! The city was speaking, 

 sparkling, and recalling me. Columns of smoke were rising beside 

 antique columns whose marbles glistered with whiteness in the 

 bosom of the night. The lines of the horizon might still be traced 

 through the vapours of the evening. All was harmony and mystery. 

 Nature did not bid me adieu, she wished to retain me. Ah ! it was 

 all to me : my mother and my child, my spouse and my glory ! 

 The hills themselves lamented then my proscription. O marvellous 

 land ! it is lovely as heaven itself! Since that hour I have had the 

 universe for my dungeon. My beloved country, why hast thou 

 proscribed me ? But I shall yet triumph there '." he exclaimed, 

 throwing into his words such an accent of conviction, and with a tone 

 so clear and penetrating, that the boatman started, imagining he had 

 heard the sound of a trumpet. 



The aged exile was standing in a prophetic attitude and looking 

 in the air towards the south, while he pointed with his finger towards 

 his country, through the cerulean fields above him. The ascetic 



Ealeness of his visage had given place to the red flush of triumph, 

 is eyes sparkled, and he was sublime as a lion erecting his terror- 

 striking mane. 



— " And thou, poor child!" he resumed, looking at Godfrey, whose 

 cheeks were bordered by a chaplet of shining drops, "hast thou then 

 like me studied life upon its bloody pages? Why weep ? What 

 canst thou regret at thy age ?" 



— "Alas!" said Godfrey, "a country more beautiful than all the 



