How beautifully the sweet poet consoles us for these misfortunes!" Oh, can these men love, my Clodius?
Scarcely even with the senses.

How rarely a Roman has a heart! He is but the mechanism of genius--he wants its bones and flesh.' Though Clodius was secretly a little sore at these remarks on his countrymen, he affected to sympathize with his friend, partly because he was by nature a parasite, and partly because it was the fashion among the dissolute young Romans to affect a little contempt for the very birth which, in reality, made them so arrogant; it was the mode to imitate the Greeks, and yet to laugh at their own clumsy imitation.
Thus conversing, their steps were arrested by a crowd gathered round an open space where three streets met; and, just where the porticoes of a light and graceful temple threw their shade, there stood a young girl, with a flower-basket on her right arm, and a small three-stringed instrument of music in the left hand, to whose low and soft tones she was modulating a wild and half-barbaric air.

At every pause in the music she gracefully waved her flower-basket round, inviting the loiterers to buy; and many a sesterce was showered into the basket, either in compliment to the music or in compassion to the songstress--for she was blind.
'It is my poor Thessalian,' said Glaucus, stopping; 'I have not seen her since my return to Pompeii.

Hush! her voice is sweet; let us listen.' THE BLIND FLOWER-GIRL'S SONG I.
Buy my flowers--O buy--I pray! The blind girl comes from afar; If the earth be as fair as I hear them say, These flowers her children are! Do they her beauty keep?
They are fresh from her lap, I know; For I caught them fast asleep In her arms an hour ago.
With the air which is her breath-- Her soft and delicate breath-- Over them murmuring low! On their lips her sweet kiss lingers yet, And their cheeks with her tender tears are wet.
For she weeps--that gentle mother weeps-- (As morn and night her watch she keeps, With a yearning heart and a passionate care) To see the young things grow so fair; She weeps--for love she weeps; And the dews are the tears she weeps From the well of a mother's love! II.
Ye have a world of light, Where love in the loved rejoices; But the blind girl's home is the House of Night, And its beings are empty voices.
As one in the realm below, I stand by the streams of woe! I hear the vain shadows glide, I feel their soft breath at my side.
And I thirst the loved forms to see, And I stretch my fond arms around, And I catch but a shapeless sound, For the living are ghosts to me.
Come buy--come buy ?-- (Hark! how the sweet things sigh For they have a voice like ours), `The breath of the blind girl closes The leaves of the saddening roses-- We are tender, we sons of light, We shrink from this child of night; From the grasp of the blind girl free us-- We yearn for the eyes that see us-- We are for night too gay, In your eyes we behold the day-- O buy--O buy the flowers!' 'I must have yon bunch of violets, sweet Nydia,' said Glaucus, pressing through the crowd, and dropping a handful of small coins into the basket; 'your voice is more charming than ever.' The blind girl started forward as she heard the Athenian's voice; then as suddenly paused, while the blood rushed violently over neck, cheek, and temples.
'So you are returned!' said she, in a low voice; and then repeated half to herself, 'Glaucus is returned!' 'Yes, child, I have not been at Pompeii above a few days.

My garden wants your care, as before; you will visit it, I trust, to-morrow.