Proserpine, restless with delight, quitted her litter, and followed by Manto, ran forward to catch the first view of Elysium.
'I am quite out of breath,' said her Majesty, 'and really must sit down on this bank of violets. Was ever anything in the world so delightful? Why, Olympus is nothing to it! And after Tartarus, too, and that poor unhappy Saturn, and his Titans and his twilight, it really is too much for me. How I do long for the view! and yet, somehow or other, my heart beats so I cannot walk.'
'Will your Majesty re-ascend your litter?' suggested Manto.
'Oh, no! that is worse than anything. They are a mile behind; they are so slow. Why, Manto! what is this?'
A beautiful white dove hovered in the air over the head of Proserpine and her attendant, and then dropping an olive branch into the lap of the Queen, flapped its wings and whirled away. But what an olive branch! the stem was of agate; each leaf was an emerald; and on the largest, in letters of brilliants, was this inscription:
'Oh, is it not superb?' exclaimed Proserpine. 'What charming people, and what excellent subjects! What loyalty and what taste!'
So saying, the enraptured Proserpine rose from the bank of violets, and had scarcely run forwards fifty yards when she suddenly stopped, and started with an exclamation of wonder. The table-land had ceased. She stood upon a precipice of white marble, in many parts clothed with thick bowers of myrtle; before her extended the wide-spreading plains of Elysium. They were bounded upon all sides by gentle elevations entirely covered with flowers, and occasionally shooting forward into the champaign country; behind these appeared a range of mountains clothed with bright green forests, and still loftier heights behind them, exhibiting, indeed, only bare and sharply-pointed peaks glittering with prismatic light. The undulating plain was studded in all directions with pavilions and pleasure-houses, and groves and gardens glowing with the choicest and most charming fruit; and a broad blue river wound through it, covered with brilliant boats, the waters flashing with phosphoric light as they were cut by the swift and gliding keels. And in the centre of the plain rose a city, a mighty group of all that was beautiful in form and costly in materials, bridges and palaces and triumphal gates of cedar and of marble, columns and minarets of gold, and cupolas and domes of ivory; and ever and anon appeared delicious gardens, raised on the terraces of the houses; and groups of palm trees with their tall, thin stems, and quivering and languid crests, rose amid the splendid masonry. A sweet soft breeze touched the cheek of the entranced Proserpine, and a single star of silver light glittered in the rosy sky.