Pagina 156 di 483

And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before

every other gift of fortune suffice to chase away the fiend that

lurked in my heart? Even as she spoke I drew near to her, as if

in terror, lest at that very moment the destroyer had been near

to rob me of her.

Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth,

nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of

love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no

beneficial influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging

its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon

the arrow which had pierced it, and to die, was but a type of me.