The Pilgrims of the Rhine

  CHAPTER XIV. THE FAIRY'S CAVE, AND THE FAIRY'S WISH.

  IT was evening; and the fairies were dancing beneath the twilight star.

  "And why art thou sad, my violet?" said the prince; "for thine eyes seekthe ground!"

  "Now that I have found thee," answered the queen, "and now that I feelwhat happy love is to a fairy, I sigh over that love which I have latelywitnessed among mortals, but the bud of whose happiness already concealsthe worm. For well didst thou say, my prince, that we are linked with amysterious affinity to mankind, and whatever is pure and gentle amongstthem speaks at once to our sympathy, and commands our vigils."

  "And most of all," said the German fairy, "are they who love under ourwatch; for love is the golden chain that binds all in the universe: lovelights up alike the star and the glow-worm; and wherever there islove in men's lot, lies the secret affinity with men, and with thingsdivine."

  "But with the human race," said Nymphalin, "there is no love thatoutlasts the hour, for either death ends, or custom alters. When theblossom comes to fruit, it is plucked and seen no more; and therefore,when I behold true love sentenced to an early grave, I comfort myselfthat I shall not at least behold the beauty dimmed, and the softness ofthe heart hardened into stone. Yet, my prince, while still the pulsecan beat, and the warm blood flow, in that beautiful form which I havewatched over of late, let me not desert her; still let my influence keepthe sky fair, and the breezes pure; still let me drive the vapour fromthe moon, and the clouds from the faces of the stars; still let me fillher dreams with tender and brilliant images, and glass in the mirrorof sleep the happiest visions of fairy-land; still let me pour over hereyes that magic, which suffers them to see no fault in one in whom shehas garnered up her soul! And as death comes slowly on, still let merob the spectre of its terror, and the grave of its sting; so that, allgently and unconscious to herself, life may glide into the Great Oceanwhere the shadows lie, and the spirit without guile may be severed fromits mansion without pain!"

  The wish of the fairy was fulfilled.