As Erix and Zella, thus singing, drew nigh unto the grot where first
their joys commingled, to flow on through life in no divided stream, two
boys, the offspring of their love, came forth to meet them. The elder,
from beneath whose locks, curled and dancing, reddened with the sun,
full many a wild-flower peeped, bore grapes, ripe, fresh-plucked, and
clutching, pressed the vintage with his hands. The younger, marching
with an uncertain step, just babbling his first words, caught the
generous juice in his tiny palms, cup-shaped, and offered to his mother,
whose lips sought his, and rested, well content to drink only of that
bliss which God has planted in a mother’s kiss. Then Erix, casting off
his load, took the elder-born to his arms, and recounted all the
chase—the scent of the perfumed morn, the song, the flight, the pursuit
through wood and open plain, the halt by the sounding sea, the leap, the
fatal shaft, the crowning death, till the boy shouted, and every muscle
worked in mimic struggle with the mimic game a-foot; and the white
pigeon descended, hovering o’er the group, and lighted at Zella’s feet,
and arched its neck, and drooped its wings, and turned round and round;
chrr-oo-uh; chrr-oo-uh; chrr-oo-eh-uh; oo-ugh; oo-ugh; chrr-oo-uh;
calling to its mate.