Chapter L

Promise Of Spring

"Ho, now!" cried Media, "across the wide waters, for that New Mardi, Vivenza! Let us indeed see, whether she who eludes us elsewhere, he at last found in Vivenza's vales."

"There or nowhere, noble Taji," said Yoomy.

"Be not too sanguine, gentle Yoomy," said Babbalanja.

"Does Yillah choose rather to bower in the wild wilderness of Vivenza, than in the old vineyards of Porpheero?" said Braid-Beard.

Sang Yoomy:—

Her bower is not of the vine,
But the wild, wild eglantine!
Not climbing a moldering arch,
But upheld by the fir-green larch.
Old ruins she flies:
To new valleys she hies:—
Not the hoar, moss-wood,
Ivied trees each a rood—
Not in Maramma she dwells,
Hollow with hermit cells.

'Tis a new, new isle!
An infant's its smile,
Soft-rocked by the sea.
Its bloom all in bud;
No tide at its flood,
In that fresh-born sea!

Spring! Spring! where she dwells,
In her sycamore dells,
Where Mardi is young and new:
Its verdure all eyes with dew.

There, there! in the bright, balmy morns,
The young deer sprout their horns,
Deep-tangled in new-branching groves,
Where the Red-Rover Robin roves,—

Stooping his crest,
To his molting breast—
Rekindling the flambeau there!
Spring! Spring! where she dwells,
In her sycamore dells:—
Where, fulfilling their fates,
All creatures seek mates—
The thrush, the doe, and the hare!

"Thou art most musical, sweet Yoomy," said Media. "concerning this spring-land Vivenza. But are not the old autumnal valleys of Porpheero more glorious than those of vernal Vivenza? Vivenza shows no trophies of the summer time, but Dominora's full-blown rose hangs blushing on her garden walls; her autumn groves are glory-dyed."

"My lord, autumn soon merges in winter, but the spring has all the seasons before. The full-blown rose is nearer withering than the bud. The faint morn is a blossom: the crimson sunset the flower."

Mardi: and a Voyage Thither

by Herman Melville

Chapter L