(_For the Mirror._)
Once--whether in a dream, a waking vision, a poetical hallucination, or
in sober reality, I know not--_once_ was I favoured with a distinct
and glorious vision of the Faries' Land! I found myself in a country
more enchantingly beautiful than the warm, romantic dream of the poet
has ever yet conceived:--therein bloomed trees, and plants, and flowers,
in beauty and luxuriance never to fade; therein was the soft air
strongly imbued with the ambrosial odour of the orient rose; but ever as
a gentle breeze enfolded me, it seemed on its refreshing wings to bear
the heavenly fragrance of unknown flowers. The sky was of an effulgent
azure, altogether indescribable--but under the influence of stealing
twilight, insensibly was it darkening, though the yet undimmed colours
of sunset were inexpressibly varied and vivid. Radiant and exquisitely
beautiful beings, fair miniatures of mortals, inhabited this
charming region, wherein was assembled all that had power to inebriate
the soul with pure and rapturous felicity, and imbue it with an
intense perception of its immortality and blessedness. Now stole the
faint, delicious sound of very distant bells--clear, silvery, and
sweet--upon mine ear, as the tones of a well-touched harp: sad were
they--luxuriously sad; and their unearthly melody infused into my bosom
a repose unknown to mortality. As I listened with awe and rapture to
that delicate minstrelsy, I seemed to become all soul; tears--far indeed
from tears of sorrow--suffused my wondering eyes, and my heart, in
the delirium of gratitude, raised itself in solemn thanksgivings to
its Creator.
"Favoured mortal!" sighed near me a voice soft as a zephyr-breath.
I turned, and beheld a constellation of the radiant inhabitants of
this ethereal country clustered about a portal, whose frame-work was
of shining stones, and whose firm, but slender bars, were of purest
gold.--"Favoured mortal!" (the speaker was beside me)--"favoured beyond
even thine own conception, know that thou art permitted to behold the
Elfin Paradise--the true, the _veritable_ Fairy Land. Pollute it
not by the tone of mortal speech; to us are thy thoughts not unknown,
and partially are we permitted to gratify thy desire for information.
Thinkest thou--so indeed hath _man_ taught thee--that this sweet
world is but a vain illusion? Know then, that _we_, the Elfin Band,
are, in the order of the universe, spirits inferior to the angels, but
superior to thee. _We_ are the creatures and servants of the Most
High! (be His glorious name by all His infinite creation reverenced
and adored!)--and _we_, in conjunction with the most exalted
hierarchies of Heaven, are spirits, ministrant to _man_! Amongst
us, alas! are evil and wretched Fays, whose terrible study it is to
subvert our beneficent labours, to prevent our entrance into this
ethereal region, and in their own desolate and accursed country to
insult the veritable Fairy Land by employing their small remnant of
celestial power in creating imitations of it, as paltry as absurd. Know
also, O mortal! that whilst with, and for, man, we abide upon earth, we
have no land, no home;--like himself, 'strangers and pilgrims' are we;
nor is it until the period when our ministry is accomplished (and of the
finale of that period are none of us informed) that we are wafted on the
gentle breezes of heaven to this celestial planet, which, lighted by the
same sun which blesseth your own, is too small to be visible to the eyes
of its inquisitive philosophers. Hark! this day was a Fairy emancipated
from earthly thraldom, and the bells of the Golden City are singing for
joy!"
The voice died away in the breeze; yet still I listened, in the hope of
hearing again those accents, as pure, distinct, and musical, as were the
small, sweet harps which, seated on the greensward at no great distance
from me, a group of Fays were tuning, whilst sundry light and rapid
flourishes seemed to prelude an intended song. The bells of the City
of the Fairies sunk one by one into silence; the scented breeze flowed
languidly as dropping into slumber; a hush of nature pervaded the
blessed region; and sad was my spirit to think that it could not dwell
in this Elfin Eden for ever! A stream of melody now broke the holy
quietness of the land, which resembled the aspirations of those who know
neither sorrow nor sin. The breathing instruments sighed, rather than
distinctly uttered, tones, according well with those fine and delicate
voices which, as they stole in gentle words upon my entranced senses,
were sweet and penetrating as the aroma of unfading flowers:--