THE SKETCH-BOOK.

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FAIRY FAVOURS.

THE CITY OF THE FAIRIES.

(_For the Mirror._)

Again, yet once again, during the days of my weary mortal pilgrimage,
did the blessed vision of the veritable Fairy Land open upon my
enchanted sight! Once more I found myself in that world of inexpressible
beauty! The radiance and sweetness of delicious morning were around
me;--balmy were the stealthy, odorous winds;--and the fluttering verdure
of that pleasant land glittered like countless emeralds, and swelled
itself in the breeze, as if conscious of, and glorying in, its
immortality! Beside me flowed a river--or rather, a broad, bright,
lovely lake--slumbering as stilly in the morning light as those who are
at peace with the world, and with Heaven. Romantic woods skirted the
shores of this waveless water;--here trees, for which the language of
man hath no name, drooped gracefully over the liquid crystal--as if,
in enamoured admiration, gazing upon their richly-coloured, luxuriant,
and feathery foliage, reflected in vivid freshness upon the bosom of
that transcendently natural mirror;--there, copse-wood, equally foreign
and lovely, closed all interstices--whilst fruits of tempting form
and colour, and flowers of inimitable hues, flashed like gems in the