And Young Love sits upon a flowery knoll Where those two streamlets mix, his shafts he dips In their joint flow, and ceaseless twangs at all Who pass his ivory bow with wanton quips. But in the honeyest kiss of human lips There lurks a poison--ay, when hearts most mingle, Doth Fate perchance prepare his scorpion whips; And nerves that with the keenest rapture tingle Shall haply curse the hour when ceased they to be single! III. ’Twas a delicious, soft autumnal eve; Salustian through his lovely garden strayed, By Isabel supported. Mountains heave Their giant forms to Heaven, Pyrene’s shade Thrown to the Frenchward side. His bulwarks made A fence the westering sunbeam to reflect, And balmy gales from many an opening glade Came soft the old man’s forehead to protect From fiercer rays, while moved his form no more erect. IV. And, as on Isabel’s sustaining arm He passed ’neath trellised vine that dropt its load Of blooming clusters near their heads, the charm Of youthful beauty in that fair abode More interest took from sorrows that corrode The old man’s brow beside her. Ne’er was seen A lovelier picture than the pains bestowed On that ripe senior by that maiden green-- No sire more grave, no maid more dutiful I ween. V. Between the apple-trees with loaded boughs Peeped ever and anon Ernani’s towers, And Haya tops them with his craggy brows, And distant Jaizquibel where tempest lours So oft serenely smiles. Through scented bowers Of orange, jasmine, myrtle, balm, they pass, And Isabel now tends, now plucks the flowers, A nosegay for her sire, while dew like glass In beads begins to strew the eve-reviving grass. VI. Not fairer opened in Alcina’s isle Upon Ruggiero’s wild, enchanted view The magic garden, mightiest wings the while Furled the aërial steed on which he flew. Not fairer that to which Armida drew The Christian Knight whom fatal toils ensnared, Where side by side the fruit and blossoms grew, The bough green apples with the golden shared, And the full ripened with the nascent fig compared. VII. Salustian to the sheltering house returned For twilight’s bland repose, and Isabel Amongst the flowers she loved till night sojourned, Then to a bower retired in distant dell Upon the garden’s verge she cherished well, For there full oft with Nial joyous seated She deep had drunk of Love’s delicious spell, And many a Vascon legend oft repeated, And now with thought of him the tedious hours she cheated. VIII.