Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

Ere long, they bore me to my grave. Never tired child lay down in his

white bed, and heard the sound of his playthings being laid aside for

the night, with a more luxurious satisfaction of repose than I knew,

when I felt the coffin settle on the firm earth, and heard the sound of

the falling mould upon its lid. It has not the same hollow rattle within

the coffin, that it sends up to the edge of the grave. They buried me

in no graveyard. They loved me too much for that, I thank them; but they

laid me in the grounds of their own castle, amid many trees; where, as

it was spring-time, were growing primroses, and blue-bells, and all the

families of the woods

Now that I lay in her bosom, the whole earth, and each of her many

births, was as a body to me, at my will. I seemed to feel the great

heart of the mother beating into mine, and feeding me with her own life,

her own essential being and nature. I heard the footsteps of my friends

above, and they sent a thrill through my heart. I knew that the helpers

had gone, and that the knight and the lady remained, and spoke low,

gentle, tearful words of him who lay beneath the yet wounded sod. I rose

into a single large primrose that grew by the edge of the grave,

and from the window of its humble, trusting face, looked full in the

countenance of the lady. I felt that I could manifest myself in the

primrose; that it said a part of what I wanted to say; just as in the

old time, I had used to betake myself to a song for the same end. The

flower caught her eye. She stooped and plucked it, saying, "Oh, you

beautiful creature!" and, lightly kissing it, put it in her bosom. It

was the first kiss she had ever given me. But the flower soon began to

wither, and I forsook it.

It was evening. The sun was below the horizon; but his rosy beams yet

illuminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the world. I

arose, I reached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon it, floated with

it in sight of the sinking sun. He sank, and the cloud grew gray; but

the grayness touched not my heart. It carried its rose-hue within;

for now I could love without needing to be loved again. The moon came

gliding up with all the past in her wan face. She changed my couch into

a ghostly pallor, and threw all the earth below as to the bottom of a

pale sea of dreams. But she could not make me sad. I knew now, that it

is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul

of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other,

and not the being loved by each other, that originates and perfects and

assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth,

power over any soul beloved, even if that soul know him not, bringing

him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good;

for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the

power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet

with its return. All true love will, one day, behold its own image in

the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. This is possible in the

realms of lofty Death. "Ah! my friends," thought I, "how I will tend

you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my love."