Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE FIRST 8. Chapter VIII (continued)

As the Egyptian ceased there rose about, around, beneath, the softest music that Lydia ever taught, or Iona ever perfected. It came like a stream of sound, bathing the senses unawares; enervating, subduing with delight. It seemed the melodies of invisible spirits, such as the shepherd might have heard in the golden age, floating through the vales of Thessaly, or in the noontide glades of Paphos. The words which had rushed to the lip of Apaecides, in answer to the sophistries of the Egyptian, died tremblingly away. He felt it as a profanation to break upon that enchanted strain--the susceptibility of his excited nature, the Greek softness and ardour of his secret soul, were swayed and captured by surprise. He sank on the seat with parted lips and thirsting ear; while in a chorus of voices, bland and melting as those which waked Psyche in the halls of love, rose the following song:

                THE HYMN OF EROS

       By the cool banks where soft Cephisus flows,
         A voice sail'd trembling down the waves of air;
        The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian's rose,
         The doves couch'd breathless in their summer lair;

       While from their hands the purple flowerets fell,
         The laughing Hours stood listening in the sky;--
       From Pan's green cave to AEgle's haunted cell,
         Heaved the charm'd earth in one delicious sigh.

       Love, sons of earth! I am the Power of Love!
         Eldest of all the gods, with Chaos born;
        My smile sheds light along the courts above,
         My kisses wake the eyelids of the Morn.

       Mine are the stars--there, ever as ye gaze,
         Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes;
        Mine is the moon--and, mournful if her rays,
         'Tis that she lingers where her Carian lies.

       The flowers are mine--the blushes of the rose,
         The violet--charming Zephyr to the shade;
        Mine the quick light that in the Maybeam glows,
         And mine the day-dream in the lonely glade.

       Love, sons of earth--for love is earth's soft lore,
         Look where ye will--earth overflows with ME;
        Learn from the waves that ever kiss the shore,
         And the winds nestling on the heaving sea.