At such an hour, Erix and Zella shook sleep from their eyelids and came forth, ready for the chase. Her hair no longer floated unbound, but, as became the matron, was twisted into a knot and confined with strings of coral, fashioned by the hand whose soft caress she returned with joys unspeakable. Upon her drooping shoulders, white and bare, rests a quiver well filled; and a belt of tiny sea-shells interwoven with fibres of the lichen, crosses transversely her breast, now full and rounded to completion. Sandals are upon her feet, and a tunic of shaggy hide covers her from the waist to the knee; all else, the morning air, invigorating, embraces. Thus seen, the poet of an after age, changed his story, and called her Dian, ruler of the night; and sang her praises in verse set to the babbling of brooks, the music of the wood, and sylvan sports. Erix, large, erect, perfect in manly beauty, with limbs well knit, proportional, combining activity and strength, was less incumbered than his mate, and carried, as his sole weapon, an ashen spear, charred and hardened at the point by fire. His was the front of Jove, the pagan, not yet won from mortality by intellect, or raised above mere matter, to express the soul’s labors and ambitions. And first, low bending, rose the morning prayer. SECTION III. “Hail Father, Creator; Thou who gavest into our hands the earth, with its fullness; all hail! Thy children, fashioned after thine own excellence, we stand, rejoicing. Greater than the earth are we; greater than the sea, that vast stream which compasses all land, forever proclaiming thy praises; greater than the orbs of day and night; greater than the elements, thy ministers; for thou didst speak unto our fathers, and didst promise to raise the seed of Adam higher than the angels. The thunder serves us, obedient to thy will; and the quick lightning; and the clouds, pregnant with rain. In the air we find thy mercies, and every tree, and every flower speaks of thee. Accept, accept our great gratitude; and keep us, even as thou keepest all else.” Again low bending, and Erix and Zella, light of foot, passed onward to the chase. SECTION IV.