The Pilgrims of the Rhine | Page 3

--Trevylyan and Gertrude

CHAPTER XXVI.
In which the Reader will learn how the Fairies were received by the
Sovereigns of the Mines.--The Complaint of the Last of the
Fauns.--The Red Huntsman.--The Storm.--Death

CHAPTER XXVII.
Thurmberg.--A Storm upon the Rhine.--The Ruins of Rheinfels.--Peril
Unfelt by Love.--The Echo of the Lurlei-berg.--St. Goar.--Kaub,
Gutenfels, and Pfalzgrafenstein.--A certain Vastness of Mind in the
First Hermits.--The Scenery of the Rhine to Bacharach

CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Voyage to Bingen.--The Simple Incidents in this Tale
Excused.--The Situation and Character of Gertrude.--The Conversation
of the Lovers in the Tempest.--A Fact Contradicted.--Thoughts
occasioned by a Madhouse amongst the most Beautiful Landscapes of
the Rhine

CHAPTER XXIX.
Ellfeld.--Mayence.--Heidelberg.--A Conversation between Vane and
the German Student.--The Ruins of the Castle of Heidelberg and its
Solitary Habitant

CHAPTER XXX.
No Part of the Earth really Solitary.--The Song of the Fairies.--The
Sacred Spot.--The Witch of the Evil Winds.--The Spell and the Duty of
the Fairies

CHAPTER XXXI.
Gertrude and Trevylyan, when the former is awakened to the Approach
of Death

CHAPTER XXXII.
A Spot to be Buried in

CHAPTER THE
LAST The Conclusion of this Tale

THE IDEAL WORLD

I.
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.
AROUND "this visible diurnal sphere" There floats a World that girds
us like the space; On wandering clouds and gliding beams career Its
ever-moving murmurous Populace. There, all the lovelier thoughts
conceived below Ascending live, and in celestial shapes. To that bright
World, O Mortal, wouldst thou go? Bind but thy senses, and thy soul
escapes: To care, to sin, to passion close thine eyes; Sleep in the flesh,
and see the Dreamland rise! Hark to the gush of golden waterfalls, Or
knightly tromps at Archimagian Walls! In the green hush of Dorian
Valleys mark The River Maid her amber tresses knitting; When

glow-worms twinkle under coverts dark, And silver clouds o'er summer
stars are flitting, With jocund elves invade "the Moone's sphere, Or
hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear;"* Or, list! what time the roseate
urns of dawn Scatter fresh dews, and the first skylark weaves Joy into
song, the blithe Arcadian Faun Piping to wood-nymphs under Bromian
leaves, While slowly gleaming through the purple glade Come Evian's
panther car, and the pale Naxian Maid.
* "Midsummer Night's Dream."
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.

II.
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.
Thine are the Dreams that pass the Ivory Gates, With prophet shadows
haunting poet eyes! Thine the belov'd illusions youth creates From the
dim haze of its own happy skies. In vain we pine; we yearn on earth to
win The being of the heart, our boyhood's dream. The Psyche and the
Eros ne'er have been, Save in Olympus, wedded! As a stream Glasses a
star, so life the ideal love; Restless the stream below, serene the orb
above! Ever the soul the senses shall deceive; Here custom chill, there
kinder fate bereave: For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows! And Eden's
flowers for Adam's mournful brows! We seek to make the moment's
angel guest The household dweller at a human hearth; We chase the
bird of Paradise, whose nest Was never found amid the bowers of
earth.*
* According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of the
loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions, the bird of
Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth, and its nest is never to be
found.
Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring, Than sate the senses with

the boons of time; The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing, The
steps it lures are still the steps that climb; And in the ascent although
the soil be bare, More clear the daylight and more pure the air. Let
Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose, He mourns the Laura but to
win the Muse. Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine
Delight the soul of the dark Florentine, Like one chaste dream of
childlike Beatrice Awaiting Hell's dark pilgrim in the skies, Snatched
from below to be the guide above, And clothe Religion in the form of
Love?*
* It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the
form