‘But what do you think of the assault on the windmills, Marmion?’ said Lady Annabel.

’In the outset of his adventures, as in the outset of our lives, he was misled by his enthusiasm,’ replied Herbert, ’without which, after all, we can do nothing.  But the result is, Don Quixote was a redresser of wrongs, and therefore the world esteemed him mad.’

In this vein, now conversing, now occupied with their pursuits, and occasionally listening to some passage which Herbert called to their attention, and which ever served as the occasion for some critical remarks, always as striking from their originality as they were happy in their expression, the freshness of the morning disappeared; the sun now crowned the valley with his meridian beam, and they re-entered the villa.  The ladies returned to their cool saloon, and Herbert to his study.

It was there he amused himself by composing the following lines: 

  Spring in the apennines.

  I.

  Spring in the Apennine now holds her court
  Within an amphitheatre of hills,
  Clothed with the blooming chestnut; musical
  With murmuring pines, waving their light green cones
  Like youthful Bacchants; while the dewy grass,
  The myrtle and the mountain violet,
  Blend their rich odours with the fragrant trees,
  And sweeten the soft air.  Above us spreads
  The purple sky, bright with the unseen sun
  The hills yet screen, although the golden beam
  Touches the topmost boughs, and tints with light
  The grey and sparkling crags.  The breath of morn
  Still lingers in the valley; but the bee
  With restless passion hovers on the wing,
  Waiting the opening flower, of whose embrace
  The sun shall be the signal.  Poised in air,
  The winged minstrel of the liquid dawn,
  The lark, pours forth his lyric, and responds
  To the fresh chorus of the sylvan doves,
  The stir of branches and the fall of streams,
  The harmonies of nature!

  II

    Gentle Spring! 
  Once more, oh, yes! once more I feel thy breath,
  And charm of renovation!  To the sky
  Thou bringest light, and to the glowing earth
  A garb of grace:  but sweeter than the sky
  That hath no cloud, and sweeter than the earth
  With all its pageantry, the peerless boon
  Thou bearest to me, a temper like thine own;
  A springlike spirit, beautiful and glad! 
  Long years, long years of suffering, and of thought
  Deeper than woe, had dimmed the eager eye
  Once quick to catch thy brightness, and the ear
  That lingered on thy music, the harsh world
  Had jarred.  The freshness of my life was gone,
  And hope no more an omen in thy bloom
  Found of a fertile future!  There are minds,
  Like lands, but with one season, and that drear
  Mine was eternal winter!

  III.