sistently sombre than that protest against
the whole pagan heaven which actually follows it? It is certainly the
most typical expression of a mood, still incident to the young poet, as
a thing peculiar to his youth, when he feels the sentimental current
setting forcibly along his veins, and so much as a matter of purely
physical excitement, that he can hardly distinguish it from the
animation of external nature, the upswelling of the seed in the earth,
and of the sap through the trees. Flavian, to whom, again, as to his
later euphuistic kinsmen, old mythology seemed as full of untried,
unexpressed motives and interest as human life itself, had long been
occupied with a kind of mystic hymn to the vernal principle of life in
things; a composition shaping itself, little by little, out of a
thousand dim perceptions, into singularly definite form (definite and
firm as fine-art in metal, thought Marius) for which, as I said, he had
caught his "refrain," from the lips of the young men, singing because
they could not help it, in the streets of Pisa. And as oftenest
happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality, those piecemeal
beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness among the fortunate
incidents, the physical heat and light, of one singularly happy day.

It was one of the first hot days of March--"the sacred day"--on which,
from Pisa, as from [105] many another harbour on the Mediterranean, the
Ship of Isis went to sea, and every one walked down to the shore-side
to witness the freighting of the vessel, its launching and final
abandonment among the waves, as an object really devoted to the Great
Goddess, that new rival, or "double," of ancient Venus, and like her a
favourite patroness of sailors. On the evening next before, all the
world had been abroad to view the illumination of the river; the
stately lines of building being wreathed with hundreds of many-coloured
lamps. The young men had poured forth their chorus--

Cras amet qui nunquam amavit,
Quique amavit cras amet--

as they bore their torches through the yielding crowd, or rowed their
lanterned boats up and down the stream, till far into the night, when
heavy rain-drops had driven the last lingerers home. Morning broke,
however, smiling and serene; and the long procession started betimes.
The river, curving slightly, with the smoothly paved streets on either
side, between its low marble parapet and the fair dwelling-houses,
forme