"Confound the old mole!" growls P---- wrathfully: "if he didn't want us, why on earth did he tell us to follow him, I should like to know?"
"Are you quite sure that he _did_ say so?" ask I. "What were the Greek words that he used?"
"'Mê akolouthei,' or something like that."
"Which means, '_Don't_ follow,'" I retort, transfixing the abashed offender with a look of piercing reproach. "If _that's_ all that's left of your Greek, you'd better buy a lexicon and take a fresh start. However, there's nobody to tell tales if _we_ don't, that's one comfort."
And so ends the first and last of our adventures in Cyprus.
Eine Welt zwar bist du, O Rom; doch ohne die Liebe Wäre die Welt nicht die Welt, wäre denn Rom auch nicht Rom.--GOETHE: _Elegy I_.
"Maytide in Rome! The air 's a mist of gold, In rainbow colors are the fountains springing, The streets are like a garden to behold, And in my heart a choir of birds are singing. Haste to thy window, love: I wait for thee. High o'er the narrow lane our glance may meet, Our stretched hands all but clasp. Hither to me, And make the glory of the hour complete.
"No sound, no sign! The bowed blinds are not stirred. I dare not cry, lest from the common street Some passing idler catch one sacred word That's dedicate to her. How may I greet My love to-day? how may I lure her near? Ah! I will write my message on her wall In living sunshine. She shall see and hear: The silent fire of heaven shall sound my call."
He draws his casement: on the glittering glass A captured sunbeam flashes sudden flame: Between her blinds demure he makes it pass: Its joyous radiance tells her whence it came. She feels its presence like a fiery kiss; Mantling her face leaps up the maiden's blood; She flies to greet him. Oh immortal bliss! For ever thus is old Rome's youth renewed.
Burns's Highland Mary, Petrarch's Laura, and other real and imaginary loves of the poets, have been immortalized in song, but we doubt whether any of the numerous objects of poetical adoration were more worthy of honor than Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, the friend and defender of Edgar A. Poe. That he should have inspired so deep and lasting a love in the heart of so true and pure a woman would alone prove that he was not the social pariah his vindictive enemies have held up to the world's wonder and detestation. The poet's love for Mrs. Whitman was the one gleam of hope that cheered the last sad years of his life. His letters to her breathed the most passionate devotion and the most enthusiastic admiration. One eloquent extract from his love-letters to Mrs. Whitman will suffice. In response to a passage in one of her letters in which she says, "How often have I heard men, and even women, say of you, 'He has great intellectual power, but no principle, no moral sense'!" he exclaims: "I love you too truly ever to have offered you my hand, ever to have sought your love, had I known my name to be so stained as your expressions imply. There is no oath which seems to me so sacred as that sworn by the all-divine love I bear you. By this love, then, and by the God who reigns in heaven, I swear to you that my soul is incapable of dishonor. I can call to mind no act of my life which would bring a blush to my cheek or to yours."