"From Eden's bowers the full-fed rivers flow, To guide the outcasts to the land of woe: Our Earth one little toiling streamlet yields. To guide the wanderers to the happy fields."
After leaving this village, where I had rested for nearly a
week, I travelled through a desert region of dry sand and
glittering rocks, peopled principally by goblin-fairies. When I
first entered their domains, and, indeed, whenever I fell in with
another tribe of them, they began mocking me with offered
handfuls of gold and jewels, making hideous grimaces at me, and
performing the most antic homage, as if they thought I expected
reverence, and meant to humour me like a maniac. But ever, as
soon as one cast his eyes on the shadow behind me, he made a wry
face, partly of pity, partly of contempt, and looked ashamed, as
if he had been caught doing something inhuman; then, throwing
down his handful of gold, and ceasing all his grimaces, he stood
aside to let me pass in peace, and made signs to his companions
to do the like. I had no inclination to observe them much, for
the shadow was in my heart as well as at my heels. I walked
listlessly and almost hopelessly along, till I arrived one day at
a small spring; which, bursting cool from the heart of a
sun-heated rock, flowed somewhat southwards from the direction I
had been taking. I drank of this spring, and found myself
wonderfully refreshed. A kind of love to the cheerful little
stream arose in my heart. It was born in a desert; but it seemed
to say to itself, "I will flow, and sing, and lave my banks, till
I make my desert a paradise." I thought I could not do better
than follow it, and see what it made of it. So down with the
stream I went, over rocky lands, burning with sunbeams. But the
rivulet flowed not far, before a few blades of grass appeared on
its banks, and then, here and there, a stunted bush. Sometimes
it disappeared altogether under ground; and after I had wandered
some distance, as near as I could guess, in the direction it
seemed to take, I would suddenly hear it again, singing, sometimes far away to my right or left, amongst new rocks, over which it made new cataracts of watery melodies. The verdure on its banks increased as it flowed; other streams joined it; and at last, after many days' travel, I found myself, one gorgeous summer evening, resting by the side of a broad river, with a glorious horse-chestnut tree towering above me, and dropping its blossoms, milk-white and rosy-red, all about me. As I sat, a gush of joy sprang forth in my heart, and over flowed at my eyes.
Through my tears, the whole landscape glimmered in such
bewildering loveliness, that I felt as if I were entering Fairy
Land for the first time, and some loving hand were waiting to
cool my head, and a loving word to warm my heart. Roses, wild
roses, everywhere! So plentiful were they, they not only
perfumed the air, they seemed to dye it a faint rose-hue. The
colour floated abroad with the scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole west blushed and glowed with the gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted with longing in my bosom.
Could I but see the Spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the in
dwelling woman of the beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale
marble, I should be content. Content!—Oh, how gladly would I
die of the light of her eyes! Yea, I would cease to be, if that
would bring me one word of love from the one mouth. The twilight
sank around, and infolded me with sleep. I slept as I had not
slept for months. I did not awake till late in the morning; when, refreshed in body and mind, I rose as from the death that wipes out the sadness of life, and then dies itself in the new morrow. Again I followed the stream; now climbing a steep rocky bank that hemmed it in; now wading through long grasses and wild flowers in its path; now through meadows; and anon through woods that crowded down to the very lip of the water.