And as Coleridge says:—
All passions, all delights, all thoughts,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all her ministers in love,
And feed its sacred flame.
When moonlight hour steals o'er the sense,
'Tis her delight, her hope, her joy:
Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,
Like a lovely hermitess,
Beauteous in a wilderness;
When praying always, prays in sleep;
And if she move unquietly,
Perchance 'tis but the blood so free
Comes back and tingles in her feet;
No doubt she hath a vision sweet.
She is the one Milton describes:—
She is the same that at my window peeps,
'Tis her fair face that shines so bright;
'Tis that sweet fairy, she that never sleeps,
But walks about high heaven all the night.
Imagination can see kingdoms in shadows, and watch warriors and their brilliant staff vanish in the mists of a grandeur lent for awhile by the fleecy clouds. She can hear the blast of trumpet and shawm as they travel through infinite space, and echoes the mystic praises of the Creator. She wakes in presence of spirits unseen by man,—she dreams as spirits dream, and she is clad in the dew of inspiration, in foretaste of her ethereal being.
