Far in a haunted grove, beneath the towering heights of Ida, where never yet, during the whole nine years of deadly strife, had the red hand of war intruded—far in a haunted grove, whither no beam of the broad day-god pierces even from his meridian height—so densely is it set with the eternal verdure of the laurel, high over-canopied by green immortal palm—so closely do the amorous vines embrace both palm and laurel weaving a vault of solid everlasting greenery—where the perpetual chant of the nightingale is mingled only with the faint sigh of the breeze that plays forever among the emerald alleys, and the sweet tinkling voice of the Thymbrœan rill, cold from its icy cradle on the cloud-curtained hill of Jove—unvisited by feet of profane visitor, stands the secluded shrine of the Pure God—a circular vault of whitest Parian marble, reared on twelve Doric shafts, their pedestals and bases of bright virgin gold. Beneath the centre of the dome is placed a circular altar of the same chaste materials, wrought with the most superb reliefs, descriptive of the birth, the exploits, and the histories of the great Deity—and in a niche immediately behind it—the Deity himself—the naked limbs—all grace and youthful beauty—the swell of the elastic muscles, the life-like, almost breathing protrusion of the expanded chest—the swan-like curvature of the proud neck, the scornful curl of the almost girlish lips, the wide indignant nostril, the corded veins of the broad forehead from which the clustered locks stream back, waved as it were by some spiritual breath prophetic, the lightning glance of the triumphant eye shot from beneath the brows half bended in a frown, proclaimed the Python killer—the Boy-god now in the flush of his first triumph!— The fierceness kindled by the perilous strife was not yet faded from the eye—yet he smiles, scornfully smiles, at the very ease with which he has prevailed over his dragon foe!
A dim religious twilight reigned through that solemn shrine; it would have been a solemn darkness, but for the pencils of soft emerald-colored light, which streamed down here and there full of bright wandering motes, among the tangled foliage—and for the pale transparent glow soaring up from the marble altar, whereon fed by the richest spices and the most generous wine, the sacred flame played to and fro, lambent and imitative of the lights that stud the empyrean.