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THE IDEAL WORLD

THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE

THE IDEAL WORLD

THE IDEAL WORLD,--ITS REALM IS EVERYWHERE AROUND US; ITS INHABITANTS ARE THE IMMORTAL PERSONIFICATIONS OF ALL BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS; TO THAT WORLD WE ATTAIN BY THE REPOSE OF THE SENSES.

Such, O Ideal World, thy habitants! All the fair children of creative creeds, All the lost tribes of Fantasy are thine,-- From antique Saturn in Dodonian haunts, Or Pan's first music waked from shepherd reeds, To the last sprite when Heaven's pale lamps decline, Heard wailing soft along the solemn Rhine.

OUR DREAMS BELONG TO THE IDEAL.--THE DIVINER LOVE FOR WHICH YOUTH SIGHS NOT ATTAINABLE IN LIFE, BUT THE PURSUIT OF THAT LOVE BEYOND THE WORLD OF THE SENSES PURIFIES THE SOUL AND AWAKES THE GENIUS.--PETRARCH.--DANTE.

Then, oh, behold the Glorious comforter! Still bright'ning worlds but gladd'ning now the hearth, Or like the lustre of our nearest star, Fused in the common atmosphere of earth. It sports like hope upon the captive's chain; Descends in dreams upon the couch of pain; To wonder's realm allures the earnest child; To the chaste love refines the instinct wild; And as in waters the reflected beam, Still where we turn, glides with us up the stream, And while in truth the whole expanse is bright, Yields to each eye its own fond path of light,-- So over life the rays of Genius fall, Give each his track because illuming all.

FORGIVENESS TO THE ERRORS OF OUR BENEFACTORS.

Hence is that secret pardon we bestow In the true instinct of the grateful heart, Upon the Sons of Song. The good they do In the clear world of their Uranian art Endures forever; while the evil done In the poor drama of their mortal scene, Is but a passing cloud before the sun; Space hath no record where the mist hath been. Boots it to us if Shakspeare erred like man? Why idly question that most mystic life? Eno' the giver in his gifts to scan; To bless the sheaves with which thy fields are rife, Nor, blundering, guess through what obstructive clay The glorious corn-seed struggled up to day.

THE IDEAL IS NOT CONFINED TO POETS.--ALGERNON SIDNEY RECOGNIZES HIS IDEAL IN LIBERTY, AND BELIEVES IN ITS TRIUMPH WHERE THE MERE PRACTICAL MAN COULD BEHOLD BUT ITS RUINS; YET LIBERTY IN THIS WORLD MUST EVER BE AN IDEAL, AND THE LAND THAT IT PROMISES CAN BE FOUND BUT IN DEATH.

YET ALL HAVE TWO ESCAPES INTO THE IDEAL WORLD; NAMELY, MEMORY AND HOPE.--EXAMPLE OF HOPE IN YOUTH, HOWEVER EXCLUDED FROM ACTION AND DESIRE.--NAPOLEON'S SON.

Yet whatsoever be our bondage here, All have two portals to the phantom sphere. What hath not glided through those gates that ope Beyond the Hour, to MEMORY or to HOPE! Give Youth the Garden,--still it soars above, Seeks some far glory, some diviner love. Place Age amidst the Golgotha,--its eyes Still quit the graves, to rest upon the skies; And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there, Track some lost angel through cerulean air.

Lo! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain, The crownless son of earth's last Charlemagne,-- Him, at whose birth laughed all the violet vales . Hark, the gales Swell with the shout from all the hosts, whose war Rended the Alps, and crimsoned Memphian Nile,-- "Way for the coming of the Conqueror's Son: Woe to the Merchant-Carthage of the Isle! Woe to the Scythian ice-world of the Don! O Thunder Lord, thy Lemnian bolts prepare, The Eagle's eyry hath its eagle heir!" Hark, at that shout from north to south, gray Power Quails on its weak, hereditary thrones; And widowed mothers prophesy the hour Of future carnage to their cradled sons. What! shall our race to blood be thus consigned, And Ate claim an heirloom in mankind? Are these red lots unshaken in the urn? Years pass; approach, pale Questioner, and learn Chained to his rock, with brows that vainly frown, The fallen Titan sinks in darkness down! And sadly gazing through his gilded grate, Behold the child whose birth was as a fate! Far from the land in which his life began; Walled from the healthful air of hardy man; Reared by cold hearts, and watched by jealous eyes, His guardians jailers, and his comrades spies. Each trite convention courtly fears inspire To stint experience and to dwarf desire; Narrows the action to a puppet stage, And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage. On the dejected brow and smileless cheek, What weary thought the languid lines bespeak; Till drop by drop, from jaded day to day, The sickly life-streams ooze themselves away. Yet oft in HOPE a boundless realm was thine, That vaguest Infinite,--the Dream of Fame; Son of the sword that first made kings divine, Heir to man's grandest royalty,--a Name! Then didst thou burst upon the startled world, And keep the glorious promise of thy birth; Then were the wings that bear the bolt unfurled, A monarch's voice cried, "Place upon the earth!" A new Philippi gained a second Rome, And the Son's sword avenged the greater Caesar's doom.

EXAMPLE OF MEMORY AS LEADING TO THE IDEAL,--AMIDST LIFE HOWEVER HUMBLE, AND IN A MIND HOWEVER IGNORANT.--THE VILLAGE WIDOW.

HENCE IN HOPE, MEMORY, AND PRAYER, ALL OF US ARE POETS.

Yes, while thou hopest, music fills the air, While thou rememberest, life reclothes the clod; While thou canst feel the electric chain of prayer, Breathe but a thought, and be a soul with God! Let not these forms of matter bound thine eye. He who the vanishing point of Human things Lifts from the landscape, lost amidst the sky, Has found the Ideal which the poet sings, Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown, And is himself a poet, though unknown.

Eno'!--my song is closing, and to thee, Land of the North, I dedicate its lay; As I have done the simple tale to be The drama of this prelude! Faraway Rolls the swift Rhine beneath the starry ray; But to my ear its haunted waters sigh; Its moonlight mountains glimmer on my eye; On wave, on marge, as on a wizard's glass, Imperial ghosts in dim procession pass; Lords of the wild, the first great Father-men, Their fane the hill-top, and their home the glen; Frowning they fade; a bridge of steel appears With frank-eyed Caesar smiling through the spears; The march moves onwards, and the mirror brings The Gothic crowns of Carlovingian kings Vanished alike! The Hermit rears his Cross, And barbs neigh shrill, and plumes in tumult toss, While Sings to Arabian lutes the Tourbadour. Not yet, not yet; still glide some lingering shades, Still breathe some murmurs as the starlight fades, Still from her rock I hear the Siren call, And see the tender ghost in Roland's mouldering hall!

APPLICATION OF THE POEM CONTINUED.--THE IDEAL LENDS ITS AID TO THE MOST FAMILIAR AND THE MOST ACTUAL SORROW OF LIFE.--FICTION COMPARED TO SLEEP,--IT STRENGTHENS WHILE IT SOOTHES.

THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE

IN one of those green woods which belong so peculiarly to our island there lived, a short time ago, a charming little fairy called Nymphalin. I believe she is descended from a younger branch of the house of Mab; but perhaps that may only be a genealogical fable, for your fairies are very susceptible to the pride of ancestry, and it is impossible to deny that they fall somewhat reluctantly into the liberal opinions so much in vogue at the present day.

However that may be, it is quite certain that all the courtiers in Nymphalin's domain made a point of asserting her right to this illustrious descent; and accordingly she quartered the Mab arms with her own,--three acorns vert, with a grasshopper rampant. It was as merry a little court as could possibly be conceived, and on a fine midsummer night it would have been worth while attending the queen's balls; that is to say, if you could have got a ticket, a favour not obtained without great interest.

"But why don't we have some new dances, my Pipalee?" said Nymphalin to her favourite maid of honour; "these waltzes are very old-fashioned."

"Very old-fashioned," said Pipalee.

The queen gaped, and Pipalee did the same.

It was a gala night; the elderly fairies, as I said before, were chatting among the honeysuckles; the young were flirting, and dancing, and making love; the middle-aged talked politics under the mushrooms; and the queen herself and half-a-dozen of her favourites were yawning their pleasure from a little mound covered with the thickest moss.

"It has been very dull, madam, ever since Prince Fayzenheim left us," said the fairy Nip.

The queen sighed.

"How handsome the prince is!" said Pipalee.

The queen blushed.

"He wore the prettiest dress in the world; and what a mustache!" cried Pipalee, fanning herself with her left wing.

"He was a coxcomb," said the lord treasurer, sourly. The lord treasurer was the honestest and most disagreeable fairy at court; he was an admirable husband, brother, son, cousin, uncle, and godfather,--it was these virtues that had made him a lord treasurer. Unfortunately they had not made him a sensible fairy. He was like Charles the Second in one respect, for he never did a wise thing; but he was not like him in another, for he very often said a foolish one.

The queen frowned.

"A young prince is not the worse for that," retorted Pipalee. "Heigho! does your Majesty think his Highness likely to return?"

"Don't tease me," said Nymphalin, pettishly.

The lord treasurer, by way of giving the conversation an agreeable turn, reminded her Majesty that there was a prodigious accumulation of business to see to, especially that difficult affair about the emmet-wasp loan. Her Majesty rose; and leaning on Pipalee's arm, walked down to the supper tent.

"Pray," said the fairy Trip to the fairy Nip, "what is all this talk about Prince Fayzenheim? Excuse my ignorance; I am only just out, you know."

"Why," answered Nip, a young courtier, not a marrying fairy, but very seductive, "the story runs thus: Last summer a foreigner visited us, calling himself Prince Fayzenheim: one of your German fairies, I fancy; no great things, but an excellent waltzer. He wore long spurs, made out of the stings of the horse-flies in the Black Forest; his cap sat on one side, and his mustachios curled like the lip of the dragon-flower. He was on his travels, and amused himself by making love to the queen. You can't fancy, dear Trip, how fond she was of hearing him tell stories about the strange creatures of Germany,--about wild huntsmen, water-sprites, and a pack of such stuff," added Nip, contemptuously, for Nip was a freethinker.

"In short?" said Trip.

"In short, she loved," cried Nip, with a theatrical air.

"And the prince?"

"Packed up his clothes, and sent on his travelling-carriage, in order that he might go at his ease on the top of a stage-pigeon; in short--as you say--in short, he deserted the queen, and ever since she has set the fashion of yawning."

"It was very naughty in him," said the gentle Trip.

"Ah, my dear creature," cried Nip, "if it had been you to whom he had paid his addresses!"

Trip simpered, and the old fairies from their seats in the honeysuckles observed she was "sadly conducted;" but the Trips had never been too respectable.

Meanwhile the queen, leaning on Pipalee, said, after a short pause, "Do you know I have formed a plan!"

"How delightful!" cried Pipalee. "Another gala!"

"Pooh, surely even you must be tired with such levities: the spirit of the age is no longer frivolous; and I dare say as the march of gravity proceeds, we shall get rid of galas altogether." The queen said this with an air of inconceivable wisdom, for the "Society for the Diffusion of General Stupefaction" had been recently established among the fairies, and its tracts had driven all the light reading out of the market. "The Penny Proser" had contributed greatly to the increase of knowledge and yawning, so visibly progressive among the courtiers.

"No," continued Nymphalin; "I have thought of something better than galas. Let us travel!"

Pipalee clasped her hands in ecstasy.

"Where shall we travel?"

"Let us go up the Rhine," said the queen, turning away her head. "We shall be amazingly welcomed; there are fairies without number all the way by its banks, and various distant connections of ours whose nature and properties will afford interest and instruction to a philosophical mind."

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