(_For the Mirror._)
Again, yet once again, during the days of my weary mortal pilgrimage,
did the blessed vision of the veritable Fairy Land open upon my
enchanted sight! Once more I found myself in that world of inexpressible
beauty! The radiance and sweetness of delicious morning were around
me;--balmy were the stealthy, odorous winds;--and the fluttering verdure
of that pleasant land glittered like countless emeralds, and swelled
itself in the breeze, as if conscious of, and glorying in, its
immortality! Beside me flowed a river--or rather, a broad, bright,
lovely lake--slumbering as stilly in the morning light as those who are
at peace with the world, and with Heaven. Romantic woods skirted the
shores of this waveless water;--here trees, for which the language of
man hath no name, drooped gracefully over the liquid crystal--as if,
in enamoured admiration, gazing upon their richly-coloured, luxuriant,
and feathery foliage, reflected in vivid freshness upon the bosom of
that transcendently natural mirror;--there, copse-wood, equally foreign
and lovely, closed all interstices--whilst fruits of tempting form
and colour, and flowers of inimitable hues, flashed like gems in the
unclouded sunlight. I bowed down my head for a draught of the cool,
clear waters, and immediately upon tasting them, felt through my frame a
pleasant, vivifying thrill;--I felt also as if I had at once thrown off
the heavy trammels of mortality, with its wearying cares, its feverish
hopes, and its over-burdening sorrows. Light as air, fresh as morning,
and joyful as the martyr at the gates of death, I gazed on the
enchanting loveliness around me.
"_Come!_" sighed a voice, low and mellifluous as that of the wind-harp,
parleying with "_the breath of the sweet south_,"--"ravishing and
radiant as is this spot, its bowery beauty must thou quit, for the
splendour of the _Golden City_, the _City of the Fairies!_ Thrice happy
mortal! thither, even to _our_ city, am I commissioned to conduct
thee!--_Come!_"
So saying, the tiny essence, whose substance resembled a portion of
lucent morning mist, wrought into the draperied and miniature image of
humanity, and whose slight figure skimmed the pure, thin air, extended
its delicate hand, and smiling encouragement, beckoned me onwards. I
followed--rather instinctively, than by any act of the understanding,
for the faculties of my ravished spirit were absorbed, as in a dream of
heaven, by the ethereal loveliness of this transcendent land, by the
soft, crystalline light, the glorious, romantic landscape, the vivid
verdure, the celestial odours, and by the snatches of unearthly melody,
which ever and anon, borne on the undulating wings of the breeze, came
from afar upon my wildered senses, breathing ineffable felicity. Above
all, my bosom was immersed in a flood of delicious feeling, by the holy
repose, the unutterable peace of the Fairy Paradise; and my heart,
surcharged with rapture, could find no vent for the overwhelming
influences of gladness and devotion, because I remembered that to
_me_ was speech in this hallowed land _forbidden_!
"Behold!" cried the friendly Fay, after we had traversed for some time
the flowery wilds, "yonder is the City of the Fairies!"
Long indeed had my eyes been fixed upon a great, clear light,
gleaming through a considerable cluster of luxuriantly foliaged trees,
beneath whose spreading branches flitted and reposed numerous aerial
beings, resembling my beautiful guide. Love, joy, innocence, and
everlasting peace were sensibly expressed in their angelic
countenances; and sweet were the words, precious the benisons, wherewith
they welcomed a mortal into the _Grove_ of the _Golden City_! The
glorious light of that city proceeded from the sun shining full upon
the palaces of sapphire-coloured crystal, erected in all styles of
the richest architecture, each symmetrical in itself, and perfect
in design and execution.--Fairy fancy, in sooth, seem to have been
exhausted in supplying models of temples, palaces, castles, porticoes,
colonnades, triumphal arches, &c. &c; for here was displayed every
species of building of which Earth boasts for ornament and defence, in
every order of every civilized nation on its bosom;--whilst orders and
edifices, for which exist no denominations among men, arose and spread
themselves--highly adorned, and richly magnificent--in this singularly
superb and beautiful city. Not upon the model of Thebes, of Babylon, of
Macedon, of Rome, or of Salem, did I, in the excess of astonishment,
gaze--not upon any one of the proud triumphs of Art, ancient or modern;
but rather upon a wild, yet exceedingly lovely, combination of, and
improvement on, the Beautiful of _all_! Gates were there none
to this city, neither closing portals to the habitations thereof;
for rapine and violence were in that delicious land unknown.
Highly-ornamented apertures, in the fashion of porticoes and arcades,
&c., stood ever open for the ingress and egress of the social denizens
of this Elfin Eden; and the windows of the shining structures seemed,
when the orb of day poured down his glorious beams upon them, each a
sun, being formed of entire white crystals, brilliant and spotlessly
pure as adamant! But the dazzling and overwhelming effulgence of the
_Golden City_ as far surpasses the power of mortal speech to
declare, as did it that of mortal eyes to endure. The ever-living
wreathlets of odorous leaves and rainbow-coloured flowers, thickly
clustering and climbing around column and pinnacle, and the shadowing
trees, bending and waving with guardian air over and amidst temple and
palace, were no defence against this supernatural radiance; but as my
dazzled eyes unwittingly closed upon the brilliant vision of the Golden
City, my auricular organs became more exquisitely sensible to the tide
of heavenly melodies, now rolling in awful and inexpressible beauty
around me; my spirit, lapped in ecstacy, quaffed with avidity the
majestic stream, and upon me seemed opening the light and loveliness of
worlds more enrapturing even, and ineffable, than this! But there was a
pause in the music, and anon the magic bells of the Golden City were
heard chiming in harp-like notes, which dropped upon the ear, small,
distinct, and purely brilliant as the melodious tears of the Renealmia
into the near bosom of the waters. A rush of fervent feeling and
exhaustless poetry bore upon my yet subdued spirit;--resistless, but
pleasant sadness enwrapt my soul;--yes! an unearthly and delicious
mournfulness it was, more precious far than the transient sparklings and
flashes of unalloyed mirth. But, alas! inadequate are words to convey an
idea of the heavenly sensations--love, awe, sweet melancholy, divine
joy, and unspeakable devotion--which then struggled for ascendancy in my
softened, purified soul! An odorous, strong wind swept past me--in it
was the sound of a rushing multitude who trod not upon earth, but cut
the air alone; and in it, too, with the murmur of voices, was that of
many instruments, touched only by the breeze.
"Hark!" cried my exquisite companion, "they pass to meet, and to
welcome, to honour, to felicitate, and to crown, a Fairy emancipated
from mortal toil; and those bells, all tones of which speak so
eloquently of immortal peace and life--those liquid bells, at once so
mysteriously sad and so blessed, send forth, in token of gratulation,
their charmed songs. But hearken! for _thou_, O mortal! art
permitted to hear the lay of welcome and victory chanted by heavenly
essences, upon the arrival in this glorious region of our dear
companion, who shall depart from it no more!"
Thereupon ensued a delicious burst of young, glad voices, and rich,
sweet instruments; but, as a shadow to reality, as man to those immortal
and spotless beings, so to _their_ glorious Paean is the subsequent
faint memory of