the long line which the sunshine of evening still illuminates, plains, and woods, and streams, and hills, more distant, half melting into air, beyond which our eye can find nothing,--though we are still certain, that other woods, and streams, and plains are there, and that it is only the imperfection of our sight, which seems to bound them as in another world. It is to man, when he thinks upon his own beginning, as if he felt himself in a world of enchantment, amid the shades and flowers of which he had been wandering, unconscious of the time at which he entered it, or of the objects that are awaiting him, when he shall have arrived at the close of that path, whose windings still lead him forward,--and knowing little more, than that he is himself happy, and that the unknown Being, who has raised this magnificent scene around him, must be the Friend of the mortal, whom he has deigned to admit into it. “Well pleased he scans The goodly prospect,--and, with inward smiles, Treads the gay verdure of the painted plain,-- Beholds the azure canopy of heaven, And living lamps, that over-arch his head, With more than regal splendour,--bends his ear To the full choir of water, air, and earth; Nor heeds the pleasing error of his thought, Nor doubts the painted green or azure arch, Nor questions more the music's mingling sounds, Than space, or motion, or eternal time; So sweet he feels their influence to attract His fixed soul, to brighten the dull glooms Of care, and make the destined road of life Delightful to his feet. So, fables tell, The adventurous hero, bound on hard exploit, Beholds with glad surprise, by secret spell Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils, A visionary paradise disclosed, Amid the dubious wild;--With streams, and shades, And airy songs, the enchanted landscape smiles, Cheers his long labours, and renews his frame.”[65]