Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/77

 senses felt themselves roused to love and happiness. A clear and serene sky widened the horizon over the luxuriant scenes of this enchanting dale. Only the warm agitation of odoriferous scents hovered about the trees, and painted with blushing salubrity the load of fruits, which peeped with picturesque beauty through their deep green leaves. Every thing seemed to invite to the most perfect enjoyment; every thing seemed to belong to the still bosom of a paradise, in which even a god would have forgot himself.

How inadequate are my descriptive powers to trace those images of fairy enchantment. All the past was now wrapt up in a purple cloud, and the present gradually displaying itself, like the first rays of the morning-sun. I laid musing beneath the hospitable shade of a group of trees, when the sounds of distant music roused me from my reverie. The swelling sounds of pastoral flutes ravished my listening ears, and suddenly a female form, dressed in a loose and floating white garment, advanced coyly from an arbour that was facing me. She wore a fine veil of crape over