Amid such innocent joys, drinking in poetry at its very fount, several days were passed, each shorter than the one preceding. Their hunger was satisfied with delicious fruits; and when weary, a natural couch of moss received them, and the trees locked their arms together, and bent over them, as if to keep off all harm, if harm could have existed in that place. It seemed that life could glide away in perfect bliss in those gardens of beauty, where naught repulsive or annoying could enter, and delight succeeded delight. Could glide away, did I say?--not there; for in the centre of that Paradise flowed the fountain of eternal youth, and over its brink hung the bush whose magic roses were famed abroad. The sight of them awoke the sleeping energies of the noble and resolute knight. "And shall I falsify my motto?" said he. "Shall the bliss of the present satisfy me, while so much remains unaccomplished--while might is triumphant over right, innocence is oppressed, and brute force bears rule upon the earth? Shall I lap my soul in indolent ease while the work of life is before me? Not so: still must I seek what is higher, purer, nobler; still must my heart pant for excellence; still must I learn bravely to endure." Speaking thus, he plucked three roses from the magic tree, and placed them upon his breast, and as the sun approached the western horizon, the comrades drew near to the gate which separated them from the world of common life. The stony barrier opened before the charmed words, and when they had emerged from its gloom, closed again with a clap of thunder. Never since has mortal man profaned those regions of unclouded happiness. Their little fairy skiff speedily conveyed them to the cave, and with the early morning they resumed their journey. Their route lay, as before, through an attractive country, and the peasants, in picturesque costumes, were engaged in the various labors of rural life: but how changed did all at first appear! It seemed as if scales had fallen off their eyes, showing coarseness and deformity, where previously none had appeared. They had tasted the rapture of a more beautiful life; and now the ordinary toils of humanity appeared "stale, flat, and unprofitable," and common men and women tedious, rude, and mean. But the brave knight struggled against this feeling. "Shall we be so ungrateful, because a glimpse of the earthly paradise has been vouchsafed us, as to sink into idle, repining dreamers? Shall we allow the visions of fancy, or the charms of nature, to steal away our hearts from human sympathy? Rather let these remembered joys excite us to fresh effort; let the useful and the good be ever clad with beauty, in our eyes; let us act as men, strive and be strong in our rightful purposes, sure that in the end the true will ever prove to be the beautiful." He might have said, in the language of a modern poet,