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THE SKETCH-BOOK.

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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!