Now stole the
faint, delicious sound of very distant bells--clear, silvery, and
sweet--upon mine ear, as the tones of a well-touched harp: sad were
they--luxuriously sad; and their unearthly melody infused into my bosom
a repose unknown to mortality. As I listened with awe and rapture to
that delicate minstrelsy, I seemed to become all soul; tears--far indeed
from tears of sorrow--suffused my wondering eyes, and my heart, in
the delirium of gratitude, raised itself in solemn thanksgivings to
its Creator.
"Favoured mortal!" sighed near me a voice soft as a zephyr-breath.
I turned, and beheld a constellation of the radiant inhabitants of
this ethereal country clustered about a portal, whose frame-work was
of shining stones, and whose firm, but slender bars, were of purest
gold.--"Favoured mortal!" (the speaker was beside me)--"favoured beyond
even thine own conception, know that thou art permitted to behold the
Elfin Paradise--the true, the _veritable_ Fairy Land. Pollute it
not by the tone of mortal speech; to us are thy thoughts not unknown,
and partially are we permitted to gratify thy desire for information.
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