Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

"My floating chariot bore me over a great city. Its faint dull sound

steamed up into the air--a sound--how composed?" How many hopeless

cries," thought I, "and how many mad shouts go to make up the tumult,

here so faint where I float in eternal peace, knowing that they will

one day be stilled in the surrounding calm, and that despair dies into

infinite hope, and the seeming impossible there, is the law here!

"But, O pale-faced women, and gloomy-browed men, and forgotten children,

how I will wait on you, and minister to you, and, putting my arms about

you in the dark, think hope into your hearts, when you fancy no one is

near! Soon as my senses have all come back, and have grown accustomed to

this new blessed life, I will be among you with the love that healeth."

With this, a pang and a terrible shudder went through me; a writhing

as of death convulsed me; and I became once again conscious of a more

limited, even a bodily and earthly life.