through the most intricate windings of the city. But her chief delight
was still in visiting the few feet of ground which made the garden of
Glaucus--in tending the flowers that at least repaid her love.
Sometimes she entered the chamber where he sat, and sought a
conversation, which she nearly always broke off abruptly--for
conversation with Glaucus only tended to one subject--Ione; and that
name from his lips inflicted agony upon her. Often she bitterly
repented the service she had rendered to Ione: often she said inly, 'If
she had fallen, Glaucus could have loved her no longer'; and then dark
and fearful thoughts crept into her breast.
She had not experienced fully the trials that were in store for her,
when she had been thus generous. She had never before been present when
Glaucus and Ione were together; she had never heard that voice so kind
to her, so much softer to another. The shock that crushed her heart
with the tidings that Glaucus loved, had at first only saddened and
benumbed--by degrees jealousy took a wilder and fiercer shape; it
partook of hatred--it whispered revenge. As you see the wind only
agitate the green leaf upon the bough, while the leaf which has lain
withered and seared on the ground, bruised and trampled upon till the
sap and life are gone, is suddenly whirled aloft--now here--now
there--without stay and without rest; so the love which visits the happy
and the hopeful hath but freshness on its wings! its violence is but
sportive. But the heart that hath fallen from the green things of life,
that is without hope, that hath no summer in its fibres, is torn and
whirled by the same wind that but caresses its brethren--it hath no
bough to cling to--it is dashed from path to path--till the winds fall,
and it is crushed into the mire for ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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