TALE X - JULIET; THE WHITE DOVE OF VERONA

Summary

“She doth teach the torches to burn bright!

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear:

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,

As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.”

Romeo and Juliet.

It was Lammas-eve. The breath of early August hung hot and sultry upon the scene. Not a leaf or a blossom stirred. The flowers in the garden, the fruit on the orchard-trees, yielded their incense to enrich its heavy-perfumed volume. The mingled scents of carnations, with their clove aroma; of fragrant jessamine, of delicious orange-blossom; the faint languor of lilies, the matchless luxuriance of roses, the honeyed sweetness of woodbine; together with the fruity opulence of peach, nectarine, and mulberry, the musky smell from fig-tree and vine, and the redolence of the grape-clusters themselves, exhaled a steam of spicery that seemed to add voluptuous weight to the torpid atmosphere, which hung close, oppressive, motionless; laden with odorous vapours. There was a hush, a pause, as of a mighty suspended breath. Within the Verona garden, on the branch of a pomegranate-tree,—deep-nestled amid its profusion of scarlet blossoms,—sat a pair of snow-white doves; their grain-like beaks joined in that close-wrestling kiss of their tribe, nearest allied in its pretty prerogative to the human caress.