"O lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live:
Ours is her wedding garments ours her shrorwd!
. . . . .
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud, Enveloping the Earth--
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!"
COLERIDGE.
From this time, until I arrived at the palace of Fairy Land, I can
attempt no consecutive account of my wanderings and adventures.
Everything, henceforward, existed for me in its relation to my
attendant. What influence he exercised upon everything into contact with
which I was brought, may be understood from a few detached instances. To
begin with this very day on which he first joined me: after I had walked
heartlessly along for two or three hours, I was very weary, and lay
down to rest in a most delightful part of the forest, carpeted with wild
flowers. I lay for half an hour in a dull repose, and then got up to
pursue my way. The flowers on the spot where I had lain were crushed to
the earth: but I saw that they would soon lift their heads and rejoice
again in the sun and air. Not so those on which my shadow had lain. The
very outline of it could be traced in the withered lifeless grass,
and the scorched and shrivelled flowers which stood there, dead, and
hopeless of any resurrection. I shuddered, and hastened away with sad
forebodings.
In a few days, I had reason to dread an extension of its baleful
influences from the fact, that it was no longer confined to one position
in regard to myself. Hitherto, when seized with an irresistible desire
to look on my evil demon (which longing would unaccountably seize me at
any moment, returning at longer or shorter intervals, sometimes every
minute), I had to turn my head backwards, and look over my shoulder; in
which position, as long as I could retain it, I was fascinated. But one
day, having come out on a clear grassy hill, which commanded a glorious
prospect, though of what I cannot now tell, my shadow moved round, and
came in front of me. And, presently, a new manifestation increased
my distress.
For it began to coruscate, and shoot out on all sides a
radiation of dim shadow. These rays of gloom issued from the central
shadow as from a black sun, lengthening and shortening with continual
change. But wherever a ray struck, that part of earth, or sea, or
sky, became void, and desert, and sad to my heart. On this, the first
development of its new power, one ray shot out beyond the rest, seeming
to lengthen infinitely, until it smote the great sun on the face, which
withered and darkened beneath the blow. I turned away and went on. The
shadow retreated to its former position; and when I looked again, it
had drawn in all its spears of darkness, and followed like a dog at my
heels.