ness 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