High, high above your
head, and on every side all down to the ground, the thicket is
hemmed in and choked up by the interlacing boughs that droop with
the weight of roses, and load the slow air with their damask
breath.
{45} There are no other flowers. Here and there, there
are patches of ground made clear from the cover, and these are
either carelessly planted with some common and useful vegetable, or
else are left free to the wayward ways of Nature, and bear rank
weeds, moist-looking and cool to the eyes, and freshening the sense
with their earthy and bitter fragrance. There is a lane opened
through the thicket, so broad in some places that you can pass
along side by side; in some so narrow (the shrubs are for ever
encroaching) that you ought, if you can, to go on the first and
hold back the bough of the rose-tree. And through this wilderness
there tumbles a loud rushing stream, which is halted at last in the
lowest corner of the garden, and there tossed up in a fountain by
the side of the simple alcove. This is all.
Never for an instant will the people of Damascus attempt to
separate the idea of bliss from these wild gardens and rushing
waters. Even where your best affections are concerned, and you,
prudent preachers, "hold hard" and turn aside when they come near
the mysteries of the happy state, and we (prudent preachers too),
we will hush our voices, and never reveal to finite beings the joys
of the "earthly paradise."
CHAPTER XXVIII - PASS OF THE LEBANON
"The ruins of Baalbec!" Shall I scatter the vague, solemn thoughts
and all the airy phantasies which gather together when once those
words are spoken, that I may give you instead tall columns and
measurements true, and phrases built with ink?
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 298 of 325
Words from 81606 to 81927
of 89094
