The country-people are
kind, letting us pass everywhere, so that we make our way along their
aqueducts and through their gardens, under laden lemon-boughs, the
pale fruit dangling at our ears, and swinging showers of scented dew
upon us as we pass. Far better, however, than lemon or orange trees,
are the olives. Some of these are immensely old, numbering, it is
said, five centuries, so that Petrarch may almost have rested beneath
their shade on his way to Avignon. These veterans are cavernous with
age: gnarled, split, and twisted trunks, throwing out arms that break
into a hundred branches; every branch distinct, and feathered with
innumerable sparks and spikelets of white, wavy, greenish light.
These are the leaves, and the stems are grey with lichens. The sky and
sea--two blues, one full of sunlight and the other purple--set these
fountains of perennial brightness like gems in lapis-lazuli. At a
distance the same olives look hoary and soft--a veil of woven light
or luminous haze. When the wind blows their branches all one way,
they ripple like a sea of silver. But underneath their covert, in
the shade, grey periwinkles wind among the snowy drift of allium. The
narcissus sends its arrowy fragrance through the air, while, far and
wide, red anemones burn like fire, with interchange of blue and lilac
buds, white arums, orchises, and pink gladiolus. Wandering there, and
seeing the pale flowers, stars white and pink and odorous, we dream
of Olivet, or the grave Garden of the Agony, and the trees seem always
whispering of sacred things.
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