Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 482, March 26, 1831», sayfa 4

THE SKETCH-BOOK

FAIRY FAVOURS

THE CITY OF THE FAIRIES

(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

THE ELFIN TRIUMPHAL SONG

 
Beautiful! beautiful!—On they float
Those lyre-like bells—a soul in each note,
A tongue in each tone of the elfin chime,
To carol the bliss of our fadeless clime.
 
 
Beautiful! beautiful!—halcyon rest
Breathe they to the weary, woe-worn breast;
Lost in their song is the dream of Earth's dree,
Companion dear! and they're singing for thee.
 
 
Beautiful! beautiful!—thou shalt feel
Their eloquent music from thee steal
Those darkling thoughts, that should mournfully twine
With the light, the life, and the joy—now thine.
 
 
Beautiful! beautiful!—each glad bell
Sings to thy soul—'Thou hast borne thee well:
The toil, the strife, and the tempest are o'er,
And thy rest is won—on the Deathless Shore.'
 

M.L.B

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

MR. HUNT, M.P. FOR PRESTON

(From Speakers and Speeches in Parliament, in the New Monthly Magazine.)

Feb. 3. Mr. Hunt.—I was particularly curious to witness the debut of the Hon. Member for Preston, in an assembly so little accustomed, as that so long misnamed the House of Commons, to such an out-and-outer of the Demos coming between the wind and their nobility—to see whether any gaucherie of manner would betray an uneasy consciousness of his not being quite at ease among those scions of aristocracy, who occupy benches originally intended for the virtual representatives of the people. Mr. Hunt, on the whole, bore himself well; and, by a total absence of affectation, of either tone or manner—that surest test of the gentleman, at least of Nature's forming—disappointed his audience of their ready smiles at demagogue vulgarity. But once, and that for a moment, did his self-possession seem to fail him while going through the ceremonies preceding a new member's taking his seat. After the member has signed his name and taken the oaths, he is formally introduced by the Clerk of the House to the Speaker, who usually greets the new trespasser on his patience by a shake of the hands. This ceremony is in general performed by the present Speaker with a gloved hand towards those not particularly distinguished by wealth or pedigree. When the new member for Preston was introduced to him, he was in the act of taking snuff, with his glove off. Mr. Hunt made a bow, not remarkable for its graceful repose, at a distance—apprehensive, as it struck me, that the acknowledgment would be that of a noli me tangere, exclusive. He was agreeably disappointed: the Speaker gave him his ungloved hand at once, in a manner almost cordial; and Mr. Hunt took his seat, evidently pleased by the flattering courteousness of his reception.

I take it that the personal appearance of Mr. Hunt is too well known to require description. He is, take him altogether, perhaps the finest looking man in the House of Commons—tall, muscular, with a healthful, sun-tinged, florid complexion, and a manly Hawthorn deportment—half yeoman, half gentleman sportsman. To a close observer of the human face divine, however, his features are wanting in energy of will and fixedness of purpose. The brow is weak, and the eyes flittering and restless; and the mouth is usually garnished with a cold simper, not very compatible with that heart-born enthusiasm which precludes all doubt of truth and sincerity.