No path was trodden in its
      vicinity; and, to reach our happy home, there was need of putting
      back, with force, the foliage of many thousands of forest trees,
      and of crushing to death the glories of many millions of fragrant
      flowers. Thus it was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of
      the world without the valley—I, and my cousin, and her mother. From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our
      encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river,
      brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding
      stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length,
      through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those
      whence it had issued. We called it the “River of Silence”; for
      there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur
      arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the
      pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its
      bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each
      in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever. The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that
      glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the
      spaces that extended from the margins away down into the depths
      of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the
      bottom,—these spots, not less than the whole surface of the
      valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it in, were
      carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, perfectly even,
      and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled throughout with the
      yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the
      ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts
      in loud tones, of the love and of the glory of God. And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like
      wildernesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall
      slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully toward
      the light that peered at noon-day into the centre of the valley. Their mark was speckled with the vivid alternate splendor of
      ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save the cheeks of
      Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant green of the huge leaves
      that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying
      with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of
      Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun. Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with
      Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one
      evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the
      fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other’s embrace,
      beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down within the water
      of the River of Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words
      during the rest of that sweet day, and our words even upon the
      morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn the God Eros from
      that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the
      fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for
      centuries distinguished our race, came thronging with the fancies
      for which they had been equally noted, and together breathed a
      delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A
      change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers,
      star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no flowers had been
      known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when,
      one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in
      place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life
      arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with
      all gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of
      which issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled, at length,
      into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of
      Æolus—sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too,
      a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions of
      Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and
      settling in peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower,
      until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning
      all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as if
      forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory. The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was
      a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among
      the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated
      her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we
      walked together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and
      discoursed of the mighty changes which had lately taken place
      therein. At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad
      change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only
      upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our
      converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same
      images are found occurring, again and again, in every impressive
      variation of phrase. She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom—that,
      like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only
      to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a
      consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight,
      by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that,
      having entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I
      would quit forever its happy recesses, transferring the love
      which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer
      and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly
      at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to
      Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any
      daughter of Earth—that I would in no manner prove recreant to her
      dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which
      she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe
      to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I
      invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I prove
      traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding
      great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it
      here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words;
      and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her
      breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made
      acceptance of the vow, (for what was she but a child?) and it
      made easy to her the bed of her death.